Why Suna Hates Team 7
by Esellyn
Summary: Why Suna Hates Team 7 or why the sand siblings love team seven. Sakura grew up around true monsters, Sasuke decided an Uchiha missing-nin was the coolest person ever, and Naruto discovered that one of the Hokage was a puppeteer. Gaara knows someone who thinks he isn't a monster, Temari knows the coolest wind jutsu, and Kankuro likes puppets. Puppeteer!Naruto, Magent Release!Sakura
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N) As you voted, Why Suna Hates Team 7! I decided to put it up early for all those who are not up at 11:00 at night(or later, depending on timezone), and thus wait for the morning to read what I have posted.**

Mebuki and Kizashi Haruno were understandably surprised when they found a small pink-haired six-year-old sitting quietly on a rock a few miles out from Suna. They were heading to Suna on a diplomatic mission, one that would require a lot of patience for politics, unfortunately.

Mebuki approached her cautiously. "Hello?"

The girl's attention turned to her. "Are you going to kill me?"

Mebuki took a step back, placing her very kunai free hands up where the girl could see them. "Of course not! What's your name sweetie?"

The girl blinked at her. "I have been called Experiment 7."

Mebuki traded hesitant glances with Kizashi. They knew that Orochimaru had been kicked out of the village for experimenting on people unethically, so it wasn't such a stretch to realize the child in front of them was most likely an experiment of Orochimaru's. "Um, would you be unhappy if we gave you a proper name? Not just a number?"

She blinked at them. "I don't see why not."

Mebuki thought for a while, eyes settling on the startling pink hair. "How about Sakura? Is that okay?"

She thought about it for a while, then nodded. "That will do. Sakura, is there a reason you selected that name?"

Mebuki smiled softly. "Your hair is the color of Sakura blossoms."

The newly named Sakura thought about that for a bit. "I like it. Thank you."

"Are you going anywhere?" Kizashi asked, curious.

Sakura shook her head. "Not really, why?"

Kizashi traded glances with his wife, and she nodded. "Well, we were wondering if you would like to come with us? It would be rather boring, and you'd mostly be by yourself during the day, as we have ninja things we need to do, but you'd have a roof over your head and food."

Sakura thought about it for a bit, then nodded. "Alright. I will come with you." She hopped down from the rock, landing awkwardly on the foot that had been under her, and on second glance, looked broken.

"Here, I'll carry you," Mebuki offered, handing her backpack to her husband, who voiced no complaints, just adjusted so he could carry both backpacks. She crouched down, putting her back to Sakura.

"You loop your arms around her neck, and she holds your legs, it's called piggyback," Kizashi explained quietly.

Mebuki allowed the girl to carefully wrap her arms around her neck, gently grabbing her legs to hoist her up onto her back. "See? How's that?"

Sakura nodded minutely, resting her head on Mebuki's shoulder. "It's okay. Thank you."

"It's no problem," Mebuki insisted. "Come on, we have to get to Suna. We have a mission to complete after all."

They reached Suna around midday the next day, having had to slow down for Sakura. They didn't mind, they had been a little ahead of schedule anyway, and could manage to slow down a bit.

"Are you the Chuunin from Konoha?" One of the gate guards asked, glancing at a schedule with a confused look on his face.

"Yes, we picked up an abandoned child on our way here," Mebuki explained, hoisting a sleeping Sakura a bit higher.

The gate guard looked dubious, but let them through. "The hospital is next to the Kage tower if you wish to visit it to get her looked at."

Kizashi nodded to the guard. "Thanks."

The guard nodded back and turned back to looking out across the desert.

They did visit the hospital first, to let a doctor give Sakura a check-up. He declared her healthy and healed up the broken ankle.

They stopped by their hotel next, dropping off their backpacks. Sakura was in little more than rags, it looked a bit like a hospital gown, to be honest, so they decided to get her proper clothing was the next thing on their to-do list. The political stuff didn't start until tomorrow, so they'd spend the day trying to get Sakura what she needed, and brief her on what was happening, and stuff like that.

"See anything you like? Mebuki asked, wandering with Sakura through a clothing store. Kizashi had cited hungry, and gone to get snacks.

Sakura tilted her head at the racks of pale clothing. "Is there anything darker?"

Mebuki, with her superior height, scanned a few other rows. "Uhm, I don't think so, we can find darker clothing back in Konoha if you'd like, but it appears you're stuck with desert colored clothing for now."

Sakura frowned slightly, but acquiesced, picking up a sandy brown t-shirt about her size. "I like this."

Mebuki smiled. "That's wonderful sweetie, why don't you pick out a couple of them, and then we can find some pants."

Sakura nodded, picking up a few more identical shirts, and a pale cream one. Pants were more basic, and she just picked out a few identical pairs in a more creamy brown. Shoes were easy, she just picked a sandy brown pair of boots that fit well and were very comfortable. Undergarments were easy as well.

Mebuki, having noticed Sakura's skin going a bit red already, bought some sunscreen as well, and a wide-brimmed hat. It would keep the sun off her face and skin.

Sakura changed after Mebuki purchased the clothes, and didn't seem too impressed with the hat. It was a bit big on her, but Mebuki insisted on the hat and on the sunscreen. Sakura gave in after a bit of nagging, and a little explaining that it would really hurt if she didn't wear them.

Kizashi cooed over her, and she stole the dango he'd gotten right from his hand, hiding behind Mebuki when he tried to take it back. She ate her treat happily, pausing only to offer a stick to Mebuki as thanks for the clothing. In her opinion, Kizashi asked for the food stealing, it was right there, also he was cooing over her, and that was annoying. It was yummy, even if she didn't actually know what it was.

"What was this?" Sakura asked abruptly, staring at the now empty plate of dango.

"Uh, Dango," Kizashi managed. He was gaping at her. This was a problem! She didn't know of dango!

Mebuki chuckled. "Now you've done it."

Kizashi ignored her, dragging Sakura off to get more dango. Sakura let herself be dragged off with a rather confused look at Mebuki. Mebuki sighed and followed her husband.

Kizashi dragged her back into the dango place, sat her down, and ordered all of the types of dango they had. Mebuki sat down next to him, clearly amused, and added a couple of orders of her favorite dango to that.

"What did they feed you anyway?" Kizashi sounded absolutely scandalized.

Sakura thought about it for a bit. "Stuff. Dunno what."

Kizashi looked even more scandalized. Mebuki patted him on the shoulder consolingly. "We can deal with it over time honey."

The dango arrived, and little more was said.

Sakura was pretty happy after they finished, her stomach was full, and it was full of really yummy food, nothing like the slop she'd gotten as an experiment. Logically, she'd known stuff like this existed, but she'd never thought she'd actually get to have some! Let alone an entire meal of it.

Kizashi disappeared again after their rather impromptu lunch, and Mebuki led Sakura towards a bookstore. "We might as well get you something to do. Do you like trivia books?"

Sakura looked confused, her nose scrunching up. "Trivia books?"

"Oh, well, I guess we'll have to see. Do you like puzzles?"

Sakura's confused expression didn't change.

Mebuki sighed. "Well, we'll have to see on that too. Alright," they had arrived at a specific shelf of books, "this one's called Sudoku." She showed Sakura a book with a nine by nine grid and a few numbers in it. "You have to put the numbers 1 through 9 into each box and line. Diagonals don't count."

Sakura stared at it, flipping it open to one of the sections. "There are numbers already there."

"Yes, you have to work with them. Like this spot here, the line and the box there need a 1, so you would put a 1 there. Understand?"

Sakura nodded hesitantly. "Sounds interesting enough."

Mebuki smiled, picking another one off the shelf. "Here, this one's a trivia book."

They continued that way, and ultimately, Sakura left with a sudoku book and a couple of trivia books about Suna. Plus an odd science fiction book that had caught her eye. Mebuki had gotten a couple of cute pencils and pens, with a couple of cute erasers and pencil toppers.

They met back up with Kizashi, who was holding a bag. A cute little backpack in the same sandy brown as Sakura's clothes and they helped her load everything but the sci-fi book into it, and place it on her back.

"Sakura, I have something else," Kizashi said, watching the small pink-haired girl look at him, confused.

He pulled a stuffed flamingo out from a pocket and handed it to her. "A flamingo stuffed animal!"


	2. Chapter 2

**(A/N) Hope you had a good Christmas! Go check my profile for the poll about my updating roster. **

Sakura stared at the animal sitting on top of her book in confusion. The backpack was reasonable, one couldn't hope to carry everything, not to mention that was rather illogical as it occupied the hands and kept one from defending themselves. The food was logical, one needed food to survive. The clothing made sense, blending in and all, and even the books made sense, keeping her busy while Mebuki and Kizashi were busy with whatever they were doing, but whatever this was, made no sense at all. What was its purpose? And what in the Elemental Nations was a flamingo?

"It's a stuffed animal, you hold it," Mebuki said softly. "It's something most children your age have, and carry around. Think of it as blending in."

Sakura nodded. That she could work with. Now what to do with it? It was sitting on her book. She rather wanted to read the book. She did not have three arms, as useful as that would be.

Mebuki took pity on her, and removed the flamingo, tucking it securely in the backpack with its head sticking out. Sakura went back to reading almost immediately.

Mebuki and Kizashi had expected a few things, bringing Sakura with them, like the confusion over the flamingo, but the lack of knowledge about food was clearly tearing up Kizashi, as he found a sushi restaurant for dinner. Sushi was difficult to come by in Suna, but it was there.

Sakura seemed to enjoy it, packing away quite a lot of food. More than Kizashi, who was around three times her size. Needless to say, the Harunos were very impressed with the small child who seemed to have a black hole for a stomach. Particularly Kizashi, who wondered if she was part Uzumaki. Uzumaki were known for their ability to pack food away.

They were gone when Sakura woke up the next day, but a packet of oatmeal with instructions on how to make it was left on the table. Sakura made it up, eating it swiftly before settling down with her book. The note also noted they would come and get her when it was time for lunch, and were sorry they couldn't stay longer to wait for her to wake up.

Sakura decided to wake up earlier the next day, she'd forgotten to set a wake-up time for herself, so she slept as much as she could before the sun ended up in her face and woke her up.

She dressed in the cream shirt with creamy brown pants and boots, putting sunscreen on all exposed skin, and placed the hat on. If Mebuki said to put sunscreen and a hat on, Sakura would do it. Instructions on the bottle said to reapply every four hours, so Sakura set a mental timer for four hours, and walked out of the house, nose buried in the sci-fi book, and the flamingo tucked under her arm. She hadn't been able to arrange the flamingo so it would poke out, but wouldn't fall out of the backpack, so she just placed it under her arm.

She wandered to a park she'd seen yesterday, and sat down in the designated sandpit, absentmindedly reading her book while she played with the sand.

She ended up with a tiny sandcastle, which was soon under siege by tiny figures of the creatures she was reading about, eight-legged wolves with little swirls on their sides. It was a bit rough, but it worked. Little piles of sand on top of the castle flattened out and became people with crossbows, little piles next to them becoming piles of arrows.

A kid sat down next to her, carefully crouching where there weren't any Klorix, the name of the wolf-like beasts. "What are you making?"

Sakura glanced at him, noting the very red hair. "Oh, just a scene from a book I'm reading. Those are the Klorix, they want to take over this fortress, the humans are trying to keep them out."

He blinked at Sakura's flamingo, sitting in the middle of the sandcastle, protected by a ring of tiny sand people. "And the flamingo?"

"That's the magic crystal in the center. The Klorix want it, and the humans are trying to keep them away from it."

"My name's Gaara," he offered quietly. A wave of his hand later, and some chakra movement, and the little Klorix refined themselves somewhat and began prowling around.

"Ooh, can you do the little crossbowmen?" Sakura asked, poking a Klorix, which just reformed after her finger was removed.

Gaara nodded happily, the tiny crossbowmen refining themselves as well, shooting tiny bolts down to the Klorix. A couple got hit, falling over dramatically with arrows in their sides.

A ball game flying in, destroying the game and sending sand everywhere. Sakura frowned at the ball, picking it up. "Did you drop this?" She asked the kids that approached them politely.

A kid approached cautiously, snatching the ball and retreating just as quickly. "Why are you playing with him?" The kid hissed.

"Why aren't you?" Sakura countered.

"He's a monster," the kid hissed.

Sakura surveyed Gaara. "He doesn't look like one, do you need glasses?"

The kid took one looked at some swirling sand, and fled quickly, running back to his friends.

Sakura sat back down and started brushing sand off of her book.

Gaara was quick to help, sand swirling up and away from the book, only to join the miniature dance of the sand as it formed the Klorix again.

Sakura brushed off her flamingo and stared at it for a moment. "Let's try something else. What about, this can be a dragon protecting a princess!"

Gaara nodded, sand swirling around the flamingo and forming horns and a second pair of legs, and making its wings bigger. "Dragon."

Sakura put it down carefully and started building a castle behind it. "Protect the castle, oh mighty beast!"

Gaara roared quietly, making the sound for the flamingo/dragon. "I am the mighty, uh, what's its name?"

Sakura shrugged. "I didn't know it was supposed to get one."

"How about Coryphantha?" Gaara suggested. "It's a cactus that blooms with pink flowers."

Sakura thought about it. "I think that's a bit long. We can shorten it to Cory!"

Gaara nodded happily, making the roaring noise again, and having the newly named Cory follow along. "I am the great flamingo dragon, Cory! All that try and attack my castle get killed!" The Klorix formed around Cory. "And these are my minions! They will hunt evildoers down and kill them!"

Sakura cheered, finishing up her castle, the book in the middle this time. "This castle protects a big library!"

"It is my knowledge, only my humans can see it!" Gaara declared, Cory parroting his words.

Sakura made little people in the castle, most of them sitting down with little books in their laps. "Who's the enemy?"

Gaara picked up a teddy bear, the sand surrounding it and forming armor. "Goliath!"

Sakura thought for a bit, then walked over and started forming tiny vaguely ape looking creatures. A wave of Gaara's hand refined them, and let them move around.

Sakura directed her troops happily, helping Gaara direct his too. They played happily until the Harunos came, having found the note Sakura left them.

"Sakura, there you are," Mebuki called.

Sakura looked up. "Hello, is it time for lunch already?"

Mebuki nodded. "Who's your friend?"

"Gaara!" Sakura chirped. "We've been playing defend and attack the castle!"

Kizashi knelt down and poked Cory. "A very impressive flamingo dragon."

Gaara made a roar, making Cory act like she was roaring. Kizashi screamed and jumped about a foot in the air, and Sakura laughed at him. Gaara joined in after a moment. Mebuki's soft giggles joined in after she got over the shock.

"Would you like to pause the game and join us for lunch, Sakura, Gaara?"

Sakura nodded happily. "Gaara? Want to come?"

Gaara looked slightly nervously over at a blond man who was approaching. "I'll ask."

"Yashamaru!" Kizashi said, smiling. "Didn't expect to see you outside of the political room."

Yashamaru inclined his head. "I am here to collect my nephew for lunch."

"Well, you wouldn't mind joining us for lunch, would you?" Mebuki asked. "Sakura seems to like Gaara quite a bit, and we can drop them back off in the park afterward."

Yashamaru inclined his head. "Why not."

Sakura beamed, picking up her flamingo dragon, the sand falling away to leave it just a flamingo. Gaara picked up his teddy bear, the sand falling away from it too. Sakura scooped up her book, the remaining shaped sand dissolving. Any sand on the book flew off, as did any sand on Sakura and Gaara.

The adults led the way, Gaara and Sakura happily following behind and talking about strategy quietly. At some point, Gaara made a sand platform for them to draw little battle plans on.

"Quite the little ninja they are," Yashamaru said, watching the two out of the corner of his eye. "You've raised her well."

"Oh, she's not ours," Mebuki said.

Yashamaru looked surprised. "I apologize for assuming."

"It's fine, she does look quite a bit like us after all," Kizashi said, chuckling. "We found her with a broken ankle a mile or two outside of Suna, we think she may have been one of Orochimaru's experiments that he abandoned."

Yashamaru snuck a glance backward at the two. "That would explain her lack of caring about Gaara's lack of a social life."

"He's this village's Jinchuuriki, right?" Mebuki asked under her breath. "How he's treated seems to suggest that."

Yashamaru wavered for a bit, then nodded. "Yes, the Ichibi."

"That explains the sand thing," Kizashi murmured thoughtfully.

"Perhaps this is good for both of them," Mebuki said softly.

Yashamaru nodded. "Perhaps. I will discuss giving a messenger owl to Gaara with the Kazekage, so he may communicate with her. Gaara has already proven more than able to care for things, what with his cactus fixation."

"He takes care of cacti?" Mebuki asked, smiling softly. "That's so cute."

Yashamaru hummed. "Sure. It keeps him occupied most of the time, and keeps him from destroying his room when he has a tantrum. He's rather attached to them. He almost killed Kankuro one time for trying to clip a leaf off one of the poisonous ones. He got the message, thankfully, and hasn't tried since."

"Kankuro or Gaara," Mebuki asked, amusement tracing her tone.

"Kankuro, you try getting the lesson you can't kill everything that tries to hurt the things you love through to sentient sand. I'm telling you, that sand isn't directly connected to Gaara, he has apologized for it multiple times."

Kizashi sighed. "Who knows with children. Is there any place you had in mind?"

"A place just down this street that sells mushroom soup. It's quite good."

Kizashi nodded, satisfied with that answer.

**(A/N) Aww, aren't tiny Sakura and tiny Gaara so cute! Sakura's reasoning behind the comment about Gaara not looking like a monster is that she's from an Orochimaru hideout, she was being groomed to be a minion. She's seen actual monsters, the creatures that Orochimaru creates. To her, Gaara's nice, therefore he isn't a monster. Plus he doesn't look like a monster. Have a nice day! And a happy New Year!**


	3. Chapter 3

All too soon for Mebuki and Kizashi's taste, they were dropping the kids back off at the sandpit and heading back to the dull matter of politics.

Sakura and Gaara went right back to their game, the new battle strategies they'd come up with over dinner drawn on paper Yashamaru had pulled out of nowhere and insisted they draw on that instead. Sakura pulled out the pens and pencils, and they went back to what they were doing, just on paper.

The adults came back at the end of the day, Sakura and Gaara reluctantly going with their respective guardians.

Sakura did wake up in time to see the Haruno's off, and they had breakfast together. Sakura promised to be at the same park as yesterday, and they dropped her off there before heading off to the Kage tower.

Two days from the end of the mission, a sand storm sprung up in the middle of the day, right after the Harunos and Yashamaru arrived in the tower.

Sakura had the sense to huddle down, pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth. Gaara was crouched beside her, his sand keeping the sand storm out. "We have to get to Kage tower, they'll be worried about us," she shouted to Gaara over the sound of the wind rushing around outside.

Gaara nodded, his face set in determination. He stood up first, the sand moving with him. Sakura had to crouch a bit, as she was a bit taller than Gaara, and the sand was tall enough for him, not quite enough for her.

"Do you know how to get there?" Sakura asked Gaara, glancing around, even if she couldn't see anything.

Gaara shrugged. "I know how to get there, not really how to get there during a sand storm."

Someone knocked on the outside of the sand bubble, and Gaara shooed the sand away from that spot, displaying his older siblings. Temari had a small fan open and was occasionally shooing the sand away with a small wind jutsu. "Come on, I know the way to Kage tower."

Gaara nodded, and Temari moved in front of them, Gaara opening that side of the bubble so they could see. Kankuro, clutching a tiny puppet, ducked into the sand bubble with them, nearly bent in half just to fit.

Temari led them to Kage tower, and the four were almost immediately attacked with hugs once inside. Well, Sakura was attacked with hugs, and the other three got dragged into it. Yashamaru stood back looking proud.

It was finally time to leave, and Sakura and Gaara were sad they couldn't play with each other anymore, but Yashamaru showed Sakura the owl he'd gotten Gaara, and informed her of their new penpal status. Then they were happy again. Children were rather easy to please.

When they got back to Konoha it was straight to the Hokage to register her, and formally adopt her. As such, Sakura, formerly known as Experiment Number 7, became Sakura Haruno. They enrolled her in the academy almost immediately afterward, as the school year began soon.

They took Sakura clothes shopping again, and she picked out darker clothing, mostly shades of grey, dark brown, and some black.

"Alright, I am Yamanaka Fubuki, you may call me Fubuki-sensei. I will read off your names, and I want to stand up and tell the class one thing about yourselves!" Fubuki smiled at the class and sighed when she saw that most of them weren't paying attention. She glanced at the clipboard, sighing again at the lack of alphabetical order of the student's names. It looked like they were in order of importance, the Hyuuga child first, then the Uchiha, then the jinchuuriki, then the other clan heirs, and at the bottom of the first page, what appeared to be a small ninja family born girl. Weird. "Hinata Hyuuga."

The Hyuuga princess stood up, looking very embarrassed with her extremely red face. The jinchuuriki, who was sitting next to her, looked rather worried, and the small ninja family born girl was on her other side, looking almost exasperated. "I-I like cinnamon r-rolls."

"Sasuke Uchiha."

The boy with hair that looked like a duck had sat on his head and not gotten up, stood up. "I wanna be just like my Aniki!"

"Naruto Uzumaki," Fubuki barely managed to keep any malice out of her voice. Professionalism was key here.

The blond shot up out of his seat like someone had set him on fire. "I'm gonna be Hokage!"

"Shino Aburame."

"I dislike anyone who kills insects needlessly."

Fubuki didn't really mind people that killed insects, but she wasn't an Aburame, so who was she to speak? "Choji Akimichi."

"I like food!" The portly boy announced, stuffing chips in his mouth as he sat down.

Fubuki's eye twitched. This was why she was considering quitting teaching. Just as soon as little Iruka got his name on the list, she was dropping this bunch with him and going back to active duty. "Shikamaru Nara."

A snore was all they got out of him, so Fubuki moved on. "Ino Yamanaka."

"I like arranging flowers!" The blonde chirped, flipping her hair.

Fubuki sweatdropped. Alright, just put a note for Iruka to keep an eye on her and watch for fangirlism. "Kiba Inuzuka."

"I'm gonna be the strongest ninja!" Akamaru, on top of his head, barked in agreement.

Can't do that if you don't pay attention. Fubuki shook her head. If anything, the Inuzuka would be like the rest of his clan, and really only shine once he was in the field. Inuzuka were terrible at book learning. Fact of life. "Sakura Haruno."

A pink-haired girl stood up, looking mildly confused. "Er, I don't like snakes?"

Fubuki sighed and marked her down as shy, alongside the Hyuuga princess. That, or there was something quite wrong with her. She moved down the list, the rest all from small ninja families, or the first ninja in their family. A lot more potential fangirls were written down, more than usual. It appeared that really, only Sakura and Hinata had proper chances of being good kunoichi. "Alright, why don't you wander around and make friends for a while?"

Sakura wasn't entirely sure the reason for all of this, she wasn't going to be here forever, and she figured that really, who she needed to know was her teammates. She could learn about others later. Although, teammates were 6 years away, and perhaps they would do stuff in the meantime. Whatever the case, she held her flamingo, and looked around for potential friends. Reasonably, and going with everything Kabuto and the other Orochimaru Minions she'd come in contact with, her friends should probably be fairly important. The attendance list was probably by importance, although she was pretty sure the Uzumaki did not have that big of a foothold her, so she wasn't sure why Naruto was so high on the list.

She decided that the Hyuuga would need some time to come out of her shell, and headed straight for the Uchiha. "Hello, I'm Sakura."

"Sasuke," he replied. "Why don't you like snakes?"

Sakura thought about it for a bit. She probably didn't want to say where she'd come from, at least not yet, her new parents had cautioned against mentioning she had been one of Orochimaru's experiments. "Had a bad run-in with one. I ended up with a twisted ankle."

Sasuke nodded wisely. "That's a good reason.

"Why do you wanna be just like your aniki?" Sakura asked.

"Cause he's the coolest. He's already in ANBU!"

"How old is he?"

"13!"

Sakura nodded. "That's very cool. That's a good goal."

"Do you have a goal?" Sasuke asked, tilting his head.

Sakura thought about it. "Maybe I'll be in ANBU. You can be my captain! Or I'll be yours. Whoever reaches captain first!"

"Or we can both be captains!" Sasuke decided. "There are lots of squads, right?"

Sakura thought about that. "Yeah, we'll both be captains."

"You can be ANBU captains under me!" Naruto announced, barging his way into the conversation. "I'll be Hokage, and you can be in my guard!"

Sakura thought about it, then nodded. "Yes, that would work too."

Naruto paused. "Or you could be advisors?"

"Nah, ANBU are cooler." Sasuke decided. "Tou-san says that the advisors do lots of paperwork. I don't wanna sit in an office and do paperwork."

Sakura grunted. "That sounds boring. Who wants to do paperwork?"

"All ninja have to do paperwork, my cute little students!" Fubuki-sensei called.

That made all three pause. "They do?" Sakura asked, wrinkling her nose.

"Yep!" Fubuki said cheerfully. "The Hokage needs to know what happens on missions, so you write mission reports!"

"That sounds annoying," Naruto decided.

"Oh, it is," Fubuki agreed. "Very. But there's nothing more annoying to the administrative ninja then late paperwork. Hatake is in loads of trouble with the administrative ninja. All of his paperwork is late."

Sakura frowned. "I don't wanna have him work under me now. That sounds annoying."

"He's a jounin, you could always end up working under him!" Fubuki chirped. "I hear he's late to every meeting that isn't a mission."

"I don't think he's a very good ninja," Sasuke said.

Fubuki snorted. "He was a genin at 5, chuunin at 6, jounin at 12, and he's the youngest ANBU to join, except Itachi, who beat him by a few years. A good ninja is an understatement."

Sasuke blinked. "Aniki's still cooler."

Fubuki chuckled. "I suppose he is."

"So, what's with the flamingo?" Naruto asked, poking the flamingo in Sakura's hands.

Sakura looked down at it. "This is Cory. Kizashi, er, tou-san, got her for me."

Sasuke looked at her a bit oddly. "Was he not your tou-san before?"

Sakura shook her head, a tad embarrassed. "No, I'm adopted."

Naruto looked puzzled. "I was at the biggest orphanage, I don't remember seeing you."

"Oh, er," Sakura chuckled nervously. "I was found outside of Suna. The Harunos, my parents were on a mission and decided to pick me up and keep me."

"Cool," Naruto said, grinning.

"I don't remember how I got out there," Sakura said quickly before he could ask any more awkward questions.

"What's it like in Suna?" Naruto asked instead.

"Aniki says it's really hot," Sasuke mused.

Sakura nodded. "It is very hot, as odd as it sounds, most people actually wear lots of loose flowy clothes, and that keeps them cool."

"Do you know anyone there?" Sasuke asked curiously.

Sakura smiled. "Yeah, Gaara, he's my friend! And whatever a penpal is. Yashamaru-san said we were penpals."

Sasuke and Naruto nodded as if they knew what that was. They didn't. "Are we friends?" Naruto asked suddenly.

Sasuke nodded. "We can be."

Sakura grinned. "I say we are!"

They nodded, and the teacher interrupted everyone with an announcement for lunch.

**(A/N) This is the last of the stories you've seen before until that SDC update in the middle of next week! I'll be closing that poll on my profile once the first chapter of Shisui Enters the Water goes up. **


	4. Chapter 4

**(A/N) Massacre happens soon, does it not? *innocent face***

Two weeks later, Sasuke missed school. Sakura and Naruto were worried, of course, but Fubuki said they couldn't do anything, and Sasuke wasn't feeling well and didn't want visitors. Being the cheeky little academy students they were, they decided to go anyway.

"We should check his house first," Sakura whispered. Cory was in her backpack, as the pink was too bright for hiding in a tree outside of the academy. Her hair was tied out of the way and covered with the hood of her jacket.

"Do you think there's a reason they're trying to stop us?" Naruto whispered back, a hood over his hair too. Sakura had tossed it at him and insisted he put it on. Sakura liked slightly big jackets, and they were nearly the same size anyway.

"Probably, but I really don't care," Sakura said, only a little gleefully. "Come on, everyone's left!"

"Why did we have to wait until everyone left again?" Naruto complained, following her out of the tree.

"So that no one would see us go a completely different way than we usually do!"

Naruto blinked a couple of times. "So, common sense."

Sakura nodded. "Yes, that magical thing most ninja don't have."

Naruto nodded sagely. "Okay."

"Now c'mon!" Sakura said, prodding him.

The Uchiha district was quiet, and that disturbed both of them more than anything.

"Even if all of them have the flu, it should be louder. The Uchiha are the type to get up and do stuff even if they're sick."

"Most ninja are like that," Naruto replied.

Sakura snorted softly. "You are right about that. C'mon, let's sneak inside."

Naruto leaned to the left a bit. "The gates are closed over with that yellow tape that means don't go in."

"Screw the tape, we're shinobi!"

"Academy students!" Naruto countered.

"Still shinobi!" Sakura chirped. "Come on, we can go over the wall."

"Ew," Sakura said simply as she was sitting on top of the wall. Naruto arrived next to her and immediately started throwing up his lunch.

Sakura patted him on the back almost distractedly, seeing the chaos. The spread of the bodies was like they'd been surprised. A couple had weapons out, and there was blood everywhere.

"How-how are you staying so calm?" Naruto asked, finishing his retching.

Sakura shrugged. "I'm desensitized. Well, that's what Kaa-san calls it. It's part of where I came from. Takes a lot more than a bit of blood to make me throw up."

"That is not a bit," Naruto hissed.

"Glad you don't have the Sharingan?" Sakura asked, mild amusement tracing her tone. "Then it'd be burned into your memory forever!"

"That does not sound fun," Naruto muttered, shuddering.

"Nope!" Sakura said, scratching the back of her head. "Come on, let's see if we can find Sasuke."

"Shouldn't we be checking the morgue?" Naruto asked, following her deeper into the compound.

"They would've told us if he was dead. Maybe he's in his house."

"I think we should be checking the hospital," Naruto said, eyes firmly on Sakura's back.

"Maybe, but I gotta see what's become of his house, and his older brother."

"Hey," a drawl stopped them in their tracks as a sloth ANBU dropped down. "You aren't supposed to be here."

Sakura raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "And you didn't stop us five minutes ago?"

"Just get out," the ANBU drawled, yawning.

Sakura sniffed. "Fine. I just want to know where Sasuke is."

"The hospital. Where else."

Sakura nodded and smiled. "Thanks, ANBU-san! Come on Naruto, let's go find Sasuke."

Naruto followed her out, with one final glance back at the ANBU.

Sasuke was just waking up when they found his room, and they immediately latched on with hugs.

"So, what happened?" Sakura asked after a moment of hugging.

Sasuke bit his lip. "I-Itachi did it. He slaughtered the clan."

Sakura took a step back. "He did? So he's the one to kill all of those people we saw."

"All those dead Uchiha, and now you have no family, we can't let this go!" Naruto declared.

"You went to the compound?" Sasuke asked.

Sakura nodded distractedly. "Looking for you."

Sasuke frowned. "He wanted me to become powerful then find and kill him."

"Then we'll do just that," Sakura said, determined. She stuck her closed fist out. "We can't let the massacre of the Uchiha go unpunished."

"Vengeance?" Naruto asked, sticking his hand in as well.

"Vengeance," Sasuke confirmed, sticking his hand in too.

They did their very best to train, but with little real idea how, or where to go, they sort of floundered helplessly.

That day's lesson was on the founding era, and while the three hadn't planned on paying attention, they ended up paying attention anyway. Especially when the strongest three shinobi in Konoha history came up.

"Madara Uchiha was considered the strongest Uchiha in his clan and is generally considered to be the strongest Uchiha ever," Fubuki said, noting with amusement that Sasuke sat up straight and stared at her, very attentive. "He was famous for many things, chief among them being his Sharingan, rumored to be the strongest ever. His mastery of the gunbai and kama as his primary weapons was also renown."

Sasuke raised his hand.

"Yes, Sasuke?"

"What's a gunbai?"

Fubuki picked up a piece of chalk, drawing the vague shape on the board. "It looks a little like this. It's a non-folding war fan, and Madara used it to amplify his wind jutsu, much like fan users from Suna do."

Sasuke squinted at it. "I think I saw something like that in our armory. Tou-san said it was forbidden for some reason or other."

"Well, Madara did go missing ninja, so that would most likely explain it. Madara was also famous for bringing the Kyuubi straight to Konoha. It was rumored that he had a summoning contract with the beast." She shot a minor glare towards Naruto, and he shrunk in his seat, Sakura and Sasuke sending twin glares right back at her. "Hashirama was Madara's best friend, but he was also his killer. At the Valley of the End, Madara and Hashirama fought their final battle, resulting in the death of Madara."

"And the Kyuubi?" Sakura asked.

"It was sealed away somewhere. It is unknown exactly where."

Sakura nodded, eyes slightly distant as though she was thinking a mile a second.

"Hashirama was known for his mastery of his bloodline, wood release. He founded Konoha, of course, and became its Shodai Hokage. His brother, the Nidaime Hokage was renowned for his intelligence. He was a seals master, a puppeteer, and an excellent water user. His use of water was renowned throughout the Elemental Nations, as he had it honed to such a degree he could summon oceans of water with just his chakra and a bit of moisture in the air."

Naruto practically had stars in his eyes. That degree of control was amazing! But, what was a puppeteer? He raised his hand. Fubuki ignored it.

Sakura leaned over. "What are you asking?"

"What's a puppeteer?"

Sakura raised her hand, and Fubuki called on her almost instantly. "What's a puppeteer?"

Fubuki sighed. "Puppetry is a Suna art, most Konoha shinobi regard it as an overspecialized profession. Puppeteers use puppets, usually made of wood and armed with many weapons. Advanced puppeteers like Tobirama could puppet up to 10 at once. One for each finger."

"Are there any S-class puppeteers other than Tobirama?" Sakura asked, at Naruto's prompting.

Fubuki sighed. She had really hoped that by speeding over it, they wouldn't pick up the puppeteering thing. "Yes, Sasori of the Red Sand. He uses human corpses as his puppets."

Sakura nodded absentmindedly. It was interesting, she supposed, and Naruto seemed enamored with it. She made a mental note to see if Gaara could get basic puppetry scrolls from his brother for Naruto in her next letter. Or, even better, set up a line of communication between the two. That was probably best. Then she wouldn't have to do it for him.

The lesson continued on, and Sakura watched with some amusement as the two boys were clearly thinking hard about their new favorite people. They were very distracted for the rest of the day, and Sakura easily covered for them, answering all the questions they were supposed to.

**(A/N) Aren't they just the cutest!? Swearing vengance together. Also, the beginning of the particular reason Suna doesn't really like Team 7. Or the future Team 7. I have a poll up for the empty update spot, it closes after the SDC update tomorrow, so go vote, alright?**


	5. Chapter 5

The next day, Sasuke came to school with a book on Madara Uchiha, and Naruto came to school with a book on Tobirama Senju. Sakura watched them and giggled to herself. They were so cute.

Sakura smiled as she walked into the Aviary to fetch the letter Gaara had sent. She could finally ask if Kankuro would be willing to spare a couple of beginner Puppetry scrolls. Something flashed in the corner of her vision, and she turned to spot... a shrine? To Madara Uchiha no less. She called over one of the handlers. "Hey, why is this here?"

He turned redder than Hinata confronted by Naruto, rubbing the back of his head. "Oh, hehe, Madara was an excellent falconer, he trained the ancestors of most of the birds in here. He hid his notes, so we were rather left in the dark when he left. Our birds now aren't even an eighth as good as the ones he trained."

Sakura nodded distractedly. "Oh, I've got a friend, Sasuke Uchiha who might be interested in picking this up, think you'll mind him hanging around?"

The handler shook his head, whitish-blue hair brushing against his face. "Nah, it's fine! If he's even a quarter the falconer Madara was, that's still twice our best!"

Sakura giggled. "Well, I'm sure he'll be overjoyed to hear he's welcome. I have a letter waiting for me, right?"

The handler started, and nodded quickly, hurrying to the station where Gaara's burrowing owl was waiting patiently. He fed it another piece of meat and handed Sakura the letter with his other hand.

Sakura quickly scanned it, smiling. "Oh, what's your name?"

"Khun," he replied.

Sakura nodded absently. "I'll tell Sasuke to look for you." She looked up, bright green meeting cobalt blue. She smiled, heading for the door. "See you tomorrow!"

He nodded to her, turning back to settle the burrowing owl in the special cages they had for them. Suna had ensured they had good accommodations for their birds, Burrowing owls being such an odd species, needed special accommodations.

Sakura mentioned Madara being a falconer to Sasuke the next day at school and invited him to accompany her to send off her letter to Gaara. He quite happily agreed.

"Can we stop by my house quickly?" Sasuke asked, glancing back the way to his house. "I think I can find Madara's notes."

Sakura smiled. "Sure, I'm sure the handlers will be overjoyed."

"How did you find out he was a falconer?" Sasuke asked.

"Oh, they have a shrine to him. Khun was rather embarrassed when I noticed it. Khun's the usual bird handler."

Sasuke nodded absently as he disappeared into his clan's library. Sakura remained politely outside and grinned as she noticed the gunbai leaning against the wall next to the door. The weapon was much bigger than she was, and she wondered if Sasuke found a child-sized version. That looked a bit big. Or really big, especially as it was probably twice her size.

Sasuke reappeared, waving a sheaf of papers excitedly. "Found them! Madara's notes on Falconry and training Messenger Hawks!"

Sakura grinned. "Come on, I have a letter to send off. Although, if you're smothered in praise and happiness for bringing those notes in, I'm standing there and laughing at you."

Sasuke frowned at her, and she ran off laughing. He ran after her, protesting rather loudly against being smothered in praise and happiness.

"Oh, hello again Sakura," Khun said cheerfully, crossing to the burrowing owl's cage and opening it. He removed the bird, setting it down on the perch. "Is this Sasuke?"

"Yeah, he's got something for you," Sakura replied, pulling out her neatly folded note and attaching it to the bird. She opened the window, letting the bird fly away.

Sasuke offered the papers. "It's Madara's notes on falconry and how he trained the messenger hawks."

Khun's mouth fell open. "Really?" He took them almost reverently, scanning them quickly. "Wow, if he was here, he'd like, Katon us all and start over."

Sakura tilted her head with a mildly amused smile. "That bad?"

"Worse," Khun muttered, continuing to read. "Oh, kid, Sakura said you wanted to learn falconry?"

Sasuke nodded, looking over from where he was examining the shrine to Madara.

Sakura just smiled. Hobbies were good for shinobi. They kept them from cracking quite so soon.

Naruto and Kankuro had a direct line of communication set up within the month, and if it was possible, his scores dropped even further as he concentrated with an almost fanatical obsession on puppetry. It seemed like he had a new scroll every week, if not more, and when he wasn't reading, he was building little puppets, everything from squirrels to hawks.

Temari and Sasuke hit it off pretty well, comparing wind jutsu, and it seemed like Sasuke was either making up, or reading about a new wind jutsu every few weeks, in between training messenger hawks, getting ready for his falconer's exam, then actually taking care of his new peregrine falcon. Finally, it was to the point where he didn't need to keep it near him any time he wasn't in school where they didn't let him have the bird, and he could go hunting with it. Naruto, having heard that the Nidame made his own puppets, and tended towards animal puppets, often went with him to try and learn better puppetry of animals, to better be able to imitate the real thing with a puppet.

Sakura, the only one actually paying attention in class anymore, kept all three of them afloat. She didn't mind, the boys were pretty low maintenance anyway, and she'd pestered Shikamaru into giving her the minimum homework needed for remaining right in the middle of the pack. She'd used it for the boys, pestering them into just the right amount of homework and studying, and keeping herself at the top of the class. They may not have any parents to annoy them about grades, but she did. Keeping two idiots who forgot they need to graduate before they can be shinobi actually in school and doing fairly well was no excuse for not having good grades. But she was naturally intelligent and had memory for ages, a very nearly eidetic memory.

Second year was the year of Sakura, as the boys so jokingly called it. She rolled her eyes at them and bopped their heads.

"Hey, Sakura, what's with the silver coloring on all of your clothes now?" Naruto asked suddenly.

Sakura shrugged. "I dunno, it's some sort of dust, I don't know where it's all coming from, but it won't come off, so I'm leaving it alone. Have you not seen it?"

Naruto shrugged. "Bold of you to assume I'm that observant."

Sakura gave him a deadpan look. "You were too shy to ask, weren't you."

Naruto blushed. "I dunno how girls react when someone asks about a clothing change!"

Sakura felt no remorse in laughing at him. Neither did Sasuke, apparently, who'd asked her about it a week ago, when it first happened.

They discovered why the dust was there that afternoon. Someone threw a rock, Sakura didn't see who, and frankly, she didn't care, and really, neither did the boys, who were still staring in shock at the rock, on the ground a good foot from Naruto, and the silver dust, which had risen up and blocked the rock, then moved back to Sakura's clothes.

Sakura blinked at the dust on her dress. "That's new. It's reacting like Gaara's sand, to a degree."

Naruto, having picked up the habit of trying to have a puppet active at all times, had the little raccoon puppet come out from an ally, where it had been doing normal raccoon stuff, or in other terms, rummaging around in the garbage. "See if you can get it to stick to Rakun!"

Sakura giggled, but pushed chakra into the dust, trying to control it into sticking it onto the raccoon named raccoon. It obeyed, and she wondered why she hadn't tried it before, she knew that silver was mildly magnetic and that the current Kazekage used gold dust in battle, so it wasn't much of a leap. "Magnet release," she said, getting back onto her dress. "The Kazekage's line uses it."

"Then how do you have it?" Sasuke asked curiously.

"Sometimes kekkei genkai like this manifest randomly, like Hashirama's wood release, they're chakra mutations," Sakura said. She knew the most likely reason for her kekkei genkai, Orochimaru had experimented on her, of course, but she'd been too young to remember most of it. She was aware she was some sort of failed experiment, but it looked like it was actually successful, it just didn't manifest right away. So, failed in his eyes.

Luckily, the boys bought that excuse and didn't pester her more.

"Should I just leave it on my dress?" Sakura wondered, staring at the dust later when they were perched around the table in Sakura's house. Her parents were out getting groceries.

"Maybe find something to hold it," Sasuke advised. "I mean, it flakes off when you brush at it, right? People will be confused about it sticking back onto your dress."

Sakura hummed. "I guess you're right, I don't want a gourd though, Gaara was talking about having one to put his sand in now, and, well, I think that might be a bit overkill."

"And pretty obvious," Naruto agreed, Rakun hopped up onto the table, settling down with its tail over its face.

Sakura hummed in agreement.

**(A/N) Yes, the raccoon is named raccoon in Japanese. They'll all be named like that. Aren't they the cutest little ninja children? So, I got a poll up, so go see that!**


	6. Chapter 6

**(A/N) I suppose I have to let them graduate at some point… **

Sakura found Naruto asleep, napping in a tree. Sasuke was also sleeping in the tree, a few branches away. The kestral he was currently training in hunting ambushes, was watching her carefully from a smaller branch that branched off of the large one Sasuke was napping on. She knew they were training in hunting ambushes specifically because Naruto had both his humanoid puppet, and his greyhound puppet out, the humanoid one appearing to sleep on a branch near Naruto, and the greyhound curled up at the foot of the tree.

"Boys~" Sakura sang. "We have class to go to!"

Naruto startled awake, nearly falling off his branch.

Sasuke woke up slowly, blinking down at her.

"Coming!" Naruto squawked, scrambling down the tree, the humanoid puppet following close behind, and the Greyhound getting up and stretching.

"Team 7, Sakura Haruno, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha," Iruka listed off, reading off of his clipboard.

Sakura simply smirked. She'd learned that a week ago. When the teams were decided. Really, they needed to defend the academy record room better.

"I hope we got a good sensei," Naruto muttered. "If we don't, how're we gonna kill Itachi?"

"Find other teachers," Sasuke said. "If they won't teach us, we'll find people who will."

"C'mon guys, they wouldn't place us with a bad sensei. We're too politically charged." With last night's discovery of the Kyuubi in Naruto, Sakura had realized that they were the most politically charged team, possibly in the entire village. And they were from a class of clan heirs. With Sasuke being the last loyal Uchiha, Naruto being the Kyuubi container, and Sakura herself having a Suna bloodline, most likely from Orochimaru, one of Konoha's few missing ninja, they were the most dangerous of the new rookie genin.

Naruto shrugged. "Hopefully. Looks like we have to wait until after lunch to know though."

Sakura yawned, pulling out her lunch. "Yeah. C'mon, let's sit by the river."

"Is our sensei ever going to arrive?" Sakura groaned three hours later, silvery dust swirling around her in distracting patterns.

Naruto shrugged, the little wooden fox he was playing with leaping around the room just like a real fox would.

Sasuke suddenly groaned loudly. "You don't think we got Hatake? That jounin Fubuki-sensei said was always three hours late?" The Kestral on his hand chirped in protest, ruffling its feathers.

Naruto and Sakura groaned in sync. "Kami, I think you're right," Sakura said, the dust around her coalescing into a fox, and joining Naruto's in play.

"Hello!" A silver-haired jounin walked in the door, only for Sakura's and Naruto's foxes to crash right into his feet, Sakura's exploding and covering him in silver dust.

"You're late," Sasuke remarked dryly. The Kestral screeched in agreement, flapping its wings a bit. Sasuke fed it a bit of meat, and it quieted down.

"Well, I think you're weird," the jounin, clearly Hatake, decided, trying to brush the silver dust off, when it jumped off of him itself, forming a tiny dragon instead of the fox it had been. "Meet me on the roof."

"We think you're weird too," Sakura snarked as Hatake disappeared in a shunshin.

"I think we'll have a lot of free time," Naruto sighed, the puppet fox jumping into his arms.

"I think so too, but on the plus side, we have time to work on what we want to," Sakura offered.

"He's a freaking jounin, it'd be better if we could actually get training from him," Sasuke pointed out. "Even if I'm pretty sure his specialty matches none of ours."

Sakura heaved a sigh, and the dragon dissolved and disappeared to form assorted jewelery on Sakura. "Maybe we'll use the hours he's late to find other teachers for ourselves."

"Oh, good idea," Sasuke noted.

He was waiting for them, sitting on the edge of the building. "Alright, why don't you introduce yourselves? Likes, Dislikes, hobbies, dreams for the future, that sort of thing."

"Why don't you go first, oh esteemed sensei?" Sakura snarked. "Show us poor, innocent, helpless genin how to do it?"

"Fine, My name is Kakashi Hatake, I have many likes and dislikes. I have many hobbies, as for dreams? Well, I haven't thought about it before."

Flat looks accompanied his introduction, and Sakura, with a very devious look on her face, opened her mouth to go first. "Sakura Haruno, none of your business, many things, multiple things, stuff."

Sasuke caught on, the smirk spreading to his face. "Sasuke Uchiha, many things, none of your business, things, and more things."

Naruto had gotten it already, and continued with the trend. "Naruto Uzumaki, things, things, more stuff, and none of your business."

Kakashi groaned internally. They weren't going to work with him, were they?

"In our defense, you asked for that," Sakura said, smirking at him.

"You have to get a bell to pass, or you go back to the academy," Kakashi said, holding up two bells.

Sakura eyed the bells. She wondered if they actually had to have an entire bell, or if she could cut one in half and then all three of them would have a bell. She decided not to ask. If she did, he might say that they had to have an entire bell. His little teamwork test would fail, they would work together as they always did.

The three of them jumped away from him to convene and decide on a course of action.

"Alright, Naruto, can you go at him first? Confuse him, disorient him, whatever," Sakura said. "Try and get a bell any way you can, but don't worry if you don't get a bell."

Naruto nodded determinedly. "Alright. I'll pull out the heavy artillery."

Sakura nodded. "Sasuke, you set up an ambush. I know they aren't meant for people, but it'll have to do. I'll help you set up a few human traps."

Sasuke nodded, whistling to signal his eagle. He'd brought his large golden eagle, a beautiful bird, trained for fighting.

"Once we're done, Aji will come get you, Naruto," Sakura continued, "And you'll lead him into the ambush. Got it?"

Naruto nodded, before leaving quickly.

Sakura grinned at Sasuke, and they began setting up traps around the clearing. Their basic traps would do little to sway the jounin, but at least they tried. And teamwork!

Kakashi, of course, pretended to fall for their traps, then tied them up in their own wire when the alarm went off and they nearly had a bell.

"Oh well, it doesn't look like any of you have a bell," Kakashi tutted. "Oh well, you…" he paused for dramatic effect. "Pass!"

Sakura deadpanned. "I think I hate you."

"I think I hate you too," Kakashi agreed immediately.

Kakashi decided to take a C-rank just about as soon as he could to get them off his back. Maybe then he'd see what teachers he could pawn them off on when the chuunin exams rolled around.

"I hate D-ranks!" Sakura muttered, pulling up another weed. On the other hand, making them do D-ranks was highly amusing.

"I hate that stupid cat," Sasuke agreed, wincing as one of the weeds brushed against stratches he'd gotten from Tora the demon cat.

"We all hate that cat," Naruto muttered, nursing a foot full of ant bites. "And I hate ant hills."

"Watch more carefully then," Sakura replied. "Or wear boots."

"Sakura, you always wear boots," Sasuke pointed out. "Even in the middle of summer when you should be wearing sandals."

"Sandals don't cover my toes," Sakura said, shrugging. "I like my toes covered."

**(A/N) Wave draws near. Night!**


	7. Chapter 7

**(A/N) Sorry about this interrupting interlude. I wanted it in, and didn't think of it in time for last week, so it's going in now. Not that any of you want to see what happens next chronologically… **

"We'll be taking a field trip to Suna, Hokage-sama and the Kazekage have decided to strengthen the alliance by sending a class each on a field trip to the other village. This class was selected for the three week trip to Suna in two weeks. We will be continuing to learn during the trip, albeit at a much slower pace, to allow for traveling and such."

Sakura lit up, and made a mental note to put it in her next letter, although Gaara probably already knew about it. He could hang out with them while they were there! And his siblings could meet Naruto and Sasuke.

Once glance to either side, and she knew the boys were already planning to send letters to their respective sand friends.

"I'll need permission slips from your guardians, and tomorrow I will hand out lists for what you need. There will be an equipment check the day before we leave, and your bags will be housed over night. We are taking every precaution we can."

Sakura nodded solemnly.

Iruka looked somewhat relieved the class wasn't celebrating or something, and began his lesson. He was a brand new teacher, replacing Fubuki, who'd given up on the class and retired from teaching, going back to being an ordinary chuunin.

"Iruka-sensei," Naruto asked after class. "Who am I supposed to ask for permission?"

"That would be the Hokage, Naruto. Same for Sasuke. Please don't bring any puppets on the trip though."

Naruto looked a bit sad, but nodded.

Sakura laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, puppet boy, let's go see the Hokage, then to my house for snacks and homework!"

The boys groaned at the mention of homework.

Two weeks later, Iruka despaired at the lack of organization in the class. Bags and assorted suitcases were everywhere, and no one was listening to him.

Sakura nudged Sasuke, and got him to take pity on the man.

Sasuke nodded to the falcon he'd brought, and it screeched, drawing everyone's attention.

In the following silence, Iruka sighed, relieved. "As I was trying to say, everyone needs to split up into groups of three."

Naruto immediately wedged himself between Sakura and Sasuke. Iruka spotted them and sighed.

"Right, well, now that everyone is split up, come along, I have seals here. This will be an impromptu lesson, so pay attention. If you don't remember how to do this, I will not get your luggage out for you."

He held up the paper. "This is a storage seal. To place something in, place the thing on top of the seal, or, the seal on top of the thing, trigger the seal with chakra, and the item will be placed inside." He demonstrated with a pencil.

Naruto brandished one of his own. "I know how to do it Iruka-sensei!"

"Why don't you demonstrate then?" Iruka suggested.

Naruto grinned and placed the seal on top of their luggage. A flicker of chakra, and he had sealed away the suitcases.

"Very good Naruto. Who would like to try next?"

Once everyone had finally been able to seal and unseal their luggage, Iruka herded them all out of the door.

"We'll be traveling with the Sand Jounin that brought the other class here," Iruka said. "Introduce yourselves please."

"Yashamaru," the one on the right said, smiling pleasantly.

"Baki," The jounin said, nodding. "This is-"

He was interrupted by Sakura. "Gaara! How on earth did you convince your father to let you come?"

Gaara blinked as he was swept up into a hug. "Hello. I assume you missed me."

Sakura choked on a laugh. "Of course I did!"

"Why don't you two catch up while we walk," Iruka suggested, rather forcefully.

"Of course!" Sakura chirped, settling for an arm around Gaara's shoulders.

They set out, and Sakura dragged Gaara over to Naruto and Sasuke. "Naruto, Sasuke, this is the friend I told you about! Gaara, meet Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha!"

"The ones that my siblings won't stop ranting about?" Gaara asked, clearly amused.

"That's us!" Naruto shouted.

"Volume, Naruto," Sakura sighed.

"Sorry," Naruto said, only slightly quieter.

"Why is Suna so hot?" Sasuke complained, fanning himself with his hand.

"Because it's a desert," Gaara said, deadpan. "Deserts are usually hot."

"Almost always! But some really cold places also qualify as deserts because they have so little precipitation," Sakura said.

"Precipita-wha?" Naruto asked, tilting his head, clearly confused.

"Precipitation, stuff that falls from the sky," Gaara said.

"Rain, snow, that sort of thing!" Sakura clarified.

"There's Suna!" Naruto shouted, pointing to the vague shape on the horizon.

"Indeed," Gaara said, smiling slightly.

"We're almost there class," Iruka said, slightly louder.

The class cheered half heartedly. Gaara snorted slightly as he looked at the somewhat droopy class. "This isn't even bad. You should see a sand storm."

Their attention turned to him, and they collectively blinked slowly.

"He's right," Sakura agreed, looking up from putting more sunscreen on. "We got caught in one. The sand whirls around, and it feels like you're being shoved in a blender. Sasuke, get over here and reapply sunscreen, you're paler then I am, and therefore, will burn faster."

Sasuke reluctantly got up and walked over. Sakura started spreading sunscreen onto him.

"What about me?" Naruto asked, tilting his head. "Don't I need sunscreen?"

"Your skin's a lot darker, so while yes, you do, so as not to burn, you won't burn as quickly. Still get over here for reapplying."

"What about Gaara!? He's suuuper pale!"

Gaara snorted slightly. "I don't burn."

"Suna genetics," Gaara explained. "Also, I carry around a layer of sand as a final defense. It doesn't burn or tan."

Temari nodded to the boy she'd been chatting with through letters for a few years. "You can use that thing?"

Sasuke nodded. "Of course. If I couldn't, I wouldn't be carrying it around."

"How do you know Sakura? She just said you were a friend, didn't give anything else."

"Oh, she approached me on the first day of school. We chatted for a bit, then Naruto forced his way into the conversation. How do you know her?"

"Oh, we were watching Gaara one day, and she was playing with him when a sandstorm hit. We made our way to the Kazekage's tower and managed okay. I used my fan to clear the sand from our path, and Gaara covered the back."

Sasuke nodded. "Cool. How have the wind jutsu I set over worked for you?"

Temari grinned, a slight hint of predatory in the grin. "They worked wonderfully. How's your falconry been going?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure the messenger bird station is halfway to setting up a shrine to me. Right next to the one for Madara."

Temari snickered. "So Sakura wasn't kidding when she said the messenger bird station has a shrine to Madara Uchiha."

Sasuke shook his head. "Nope. It has allowed me to learn that I look a surprising amount like his little brother."

"Aww, poor Sasuke, stuck looking like the little brother of the coolest Uchiha ever," Temari teased.

Sasuke puffed out one cheek in a pout. "Not my fault I look like him! Stupid genetics."

Temari laughed at him.

Kankuro and Naruto sized each other up, and shrugged, quickly slipping into a discussion of puppetry, making puppets, and giving them weapons.

"Sasuke, you look like a lobster, did you forget sunscreen?" Sakura asked, trying to look worried and failing completely.

Naruto just burst out laughing when he noticed, as did Kankuro and Temari. Sasuke might have flushed, but no one could really tell under the burnt skin.

"L-lets get some sunscreen on you before you burn even worse," Sakura managed, holding back snickers.

"Shouldn't you reapply as well?" Gaara asked Sakura.

"Hm? Oh, I don't think I applied this morning either, huh, I didn't burn."

"You must have some Suna genetics somewhere," Gaara noted.

"Huh, well, I guess I don't have to worry about sunscreen then. More for you poor susceptible Uchiha."

Sasuke pouted, but let Sakura apply the sunscreen, wincing as she smoothed the sunscreen over the burnt parts.

**(A/N) Yes, Sakura does have Suna genetics. Yes, I know who her parents are. You can ask if you want, I'll reply. No promises it won't be mildly cryptic. One of her adopted parents is her biological parent tho. The poll is up early, go see and vote. There are new options. You can see what my discord friends prefer by what's already voted. Aka, Cursed 12 and Burning the Future. **


	8. Chapter 8

**(A/N) Back on track of canon! Consider last chapter a filler. **

"Morning!" Kakashi chirped, appearing in front of them with a broad smile visible in his single eye.

Sakura blinked at him sleepily, waking up from her light doze. "Afternoon," she corrected, checking the position of the sun.

"Noon," Kakashi acquiesced.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, hopping out of a nearby tree, a larger red tailed hawk following him.

Naruto, who'd been dozing against a different post, yawned and stretched. "Noon Kakashi-sensei. We doin anything today?"

"Nothing much, I just figured we'd go get a C-rank," Kakashi said casually, rising and strolling away towards the mission office.

"Not another-" Naruto started, then registered the words properly. "Really!? You're the best Kakashi-sensei!"

Sasuke smirked in a quiet sort of satisfaction, and Sakura's silver dust rose around her, swirling in pretty patterns as she trotted after her teacher.

"What do you think we'll get!?" Naruto asked excitedly as they walked. "Saving a princess? Saving a nation?"

Sakura stifled snickers. "Naruto, those would probably be considered A and S-rank missions respectively. We probably just have a simple low risk courier mission or basic guard mission. Something where the most dangerous thing we'll fight are bandits."

"Or each other," Sasuke coughed, smirking at Naruto.

"Hey!" Naruto squawked.

Sakura sighed, and trotted up to the only non-argumentative boy. "What did you have in mind, Sensei?"

"Perhaps a guard mission," he hummed. "Could prove interesting."

"It could," Sakura agreed, linking her hands behind her head. "Would we leave today, or tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, likely, C-ranks are rarely important enough we would need to leave immediately," He said, shrugging lightly.

Sakura hummed, already going over a packing checklist in her head. "How long are missions like this usually?"

"A few weeks at most," he replied absently, looking at her curiously, as if he could see the thoughts spinning around in her brain, organizing themselves with brutal efficiency.

"Alright," Sakura said, tilting her head at the approaching mission center. "Are they received at the same place as other ranks? Or rather, are D-ranks given at the same place. It seemed like we were always the only ones in the room."

"Well, it's traditional for genin teams to get their missions from that room, most other shinobi just request a mission and go up to the mission desk near the jounin lounge to fetch them," Kakashi said. "You can start doing it when you're a chuunin."

"Or enter the genin corps," Sakura pointed out.

"You won't enter the genin corps," Kakashi sighed. "Alas, you will forever be pains in my side, as opposed to one off pains in my side."

Sakura grinned, hip bumping his leg, which was unfortunately all she could reach on her obnoxiously tall teacher. Apparently her parents, whoever they were, hadn't been the tallest, for which she was sad, she had wanted to be tall.

Unfortunately, Gaara was apparently already taller than her, if his recent letters were anything to be believed. Her boys were also taller than her, if only by a couple of inches. Something they enjoyed lording over her.

"Good morning Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke," Iruka-sensei greeted them with a smile. "Here for another mission?"

"We'll take a C-rank," Kakashi said, inclining his head with what probably was supposed to be a polite smile, but was completely hidden by his mask.

"Are you sure?" He asked skeptically.

"Yes," Kakashi replied, and the two had a stare down for a few minutes.

"For what it's worth," Sakura volunteered, elbowing the boys when they almost started arguing again, "I believe we're ready for it, and it is a necessary next step in our development as a team."

Iruka rolled that over in his mind a few times, and ultimately relented. "Alright Sakura, if you really think so."

"Does my opinion mean nothing?" Kakashi complained.

"I trust her opinion of her team's skills," Iruka said, shaking his head. "And yes, over yours. Somehow, I think her judgement is less impaired and has a higher chance of being correct, since she spends all her time around her team, as opposed to your few hours at most."

Sakura bit back a laugh and a grin, settling for a blank face. The boys were slightly less successful, and were snickering quietly. After a moment she took pity on Kakashi and elbowed them into silence.

"We'll take that C-rank now, if you don't mind," Kakashi said tiredly, slumping.

"Alright," Iruka said, sounding and looking for all the world like he was perfectly normal, but Sakura could see the faint tremors in his shoulders that spoke of suppressed laughter. From the long suffering sigh, she knew Kakashi could see it too.

Iruka shuffled through his papers. "Well, we have an escort mission for a bridge builder, if that's alright by you. A simple C-rank, shouldn't even encounter bandits."

"Sure," Kakashi said, resigned, accepting the scroll.

"Meet your client at 9:00 tomorrow morning," Iruka informed them kindly. "Sakura, you're in charge of planning."

"We'll just be going now…" Kakashi said, hurriedly ushering them out of the door. It was like he was afraid Iruka was going to steal them or something, which was ridiculous, Iruka did have his own class to attend to in the fall. Iruka wasn't one to shirk duty after all. Unlike a certain someone else.

"Pack for two weeks," Kakashi instructed them when outside. "Try and pack lightly though."

They nodded, and darted off after Kakashi shunshined away.

"First things first," Sakura said as they hurried to her house. "Weapons check, we'll nab any we need to replace, then move on to the actual packing. Dinner will probably be somewhere in there, my mom made ribs, and she wants you two over to help us eat them."

Sasuke wrinkled his nose. "We just did a weapons check two weeks ago."

"And we'll do one before each mission that might require them," Sakura shot back. "This is important, Sasuke."

He grumbled a bit, but acquiesced after a bit.

"Wonderful. After packing is finished, we will sleep, and rest up for the next day. When we get up sunscreen will be applied, packing checked, and we'll have breakfast, then leave. Sound alright?"

Naruto gave a thumbs up. "You think of everything Sakura-chan! I'm sure it's fine!"

"We'll be fine," Sasuke agreed. "As long as I have my gunbai, and Naruto has his puppets, and you have your dust."

"But actual changes of clothing, hygiene products, and proper stuff for taking care of our weapons is needed as well!" Naruto quickly said, seeing the threatening expression beginning to form on Sakura's face at Sasuke's dismissal of requiring packing.

"Of course," Sasuke was quick to agree, nodding sagely.

**(A/N) I am terribly sorry for the shorter chapter, but math, and stress, and work, all came to a head, and this happened. I'll try not to let it happen again, but we'll see. Sorry again. **


	9. Chapter 9

**(A/N) Wave! **

"You have everything?" Kakashi asked lazily, snapping his book shut.

Sakura nodded for them. "We do. I double and triple checked."

Sasuke wrinkled his nose at the drunk old man they were escorting. "I had imagined someone… less drunk."

Naruto snorted. "No kidding. We'll probably be going so slow I can recalibrate my fox puppet on the way."

"Don't insult the client," Sakura scolded, lightly whacking both of them. "He is the one paying us, after all. Now, come on, lets go."

"I'm supposed to say that," Kakashi muttered, bringing up the rear as they headed out.

Sakura assumed a frontal position, just a bit of silver dust at the ready. The rest she could easily pull out at a moment's notice, but having some out was a good idea anyway.

Sasuke had refrained from bringing any birds, but did have his gunbai on his back.

True to his word, Naruto had his fox puppet out and was recalibrating the joints while they walked slowly along the path.

Sakura saw the puddle first. She gave an exasperated look at the sky, which was bright blue and not at all cloudy, then at the puddle. It was clearly some enemy nin. Not very intelligent ones at that.

She nudged Sasuke, who nudged Naruto, who nudged Kakashi, who didn't seem to notice a thing.

Sasuke pulled the gunbai off his back, swapping positions with Sakura, and swinging the massive weapon, blowing away the puddle, and the ninja within.

"Demon Brothers of Kiri," Sakura noted calmly, dust swirling around her. "Chuunin level at best. Separate and destroy."

The same puppet he'd just been working on leaped out of Naruto's arms, leaping towards the two enemy nin and distracting them while Naruto pulled out a few more battle oriented puppets.

Sakura's dust swirled into the air, dispersing and flying towards the enemy nin, wrapping around one of them, while Sasuke's next blast of wind chakra blew the other one back.

Naruto's massive eagle puppet quickly ensnared the nin in wire, wrapping him up very thoroughly.

"Well done," Kakashi noted, clapping quietly. "You reacted quickly and without hesitation to eliminate the threat."

Sakura smiled, tightening the dust's grip on the nin as he tried to wriggle out.

"Now," Kakashi said casually, turning to Tazuna. "Why are you trying to get my genin team killed?"

"I'm not, I swear!" He squeaked, hands up in the classic 'I mean no harm' position. "I didn't know it would be genin, and look, they handled it fine, didn't they?"

Even Naruto could tell that was the wrong thing to say.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes dangerously. "Oh really? And why did you think it was a good idea to lie to Konoha and have a lower ranked mission when, clearly, this mission is at least B-ranked. Higher if there are any worse opponents along our path."

Tazuna was slowly but surely shrinking in on himself, looking more and more contrite by the moment.

"Kakashi-sensei, it's alright," Naruto said, bouncing up to him. "We can handle it! We should just be glad it was our team instead of complaining!"

Sakura sighed at her teammate, placing a hand on her face. "I suppose he isn't wrong," Sakura sighed, shaking her head. "We are one of the more powerful genin teams. I suppose the only one better equipped for a mission to go wrong, would be Gai's team. They're all pretty powerhousey."

Kakashi glared at her for agreeing with Naruto. She remained uncowed. "It'll take too long to go back to Konoha. Wave needs the bridge built. We might as well continue. You are an elite jounin, are you not? You can handle everything we come across."

Sasuke grunted. "So, we continuing or not?"

Kakashi sighed deeply, and Sakura knew they'd won. "Fine. Dispatch of the Demon Brothers, and we will continue."

Sakura flicked her hand and the demon brother she'd capture was dead of a snapped neck. Sasuke pulled a kunai on the other, slitting his throat.

"Wonderful," Kakashi said, pulling out two scrolls for the brothers. "Seal them up and we'll be on our way."

Sakura caught one scroll, sealing her demon brother away, Naruto caught the other, untying the body before sealing it away.

They got on their way, Kakashi in the front this time, actively scanning for threats instead of lazily reading his book.

"Naruto, perhaps keep the fighting ones out," Sakura hissed as Naruto started sealing his puppets away as they walked.

"I'm just exchanging them," Naruto promised, pulling out Tobirama's wolf puppet and a humanoid one.

"Alright," Sakura said, nodding.

Mist started collecting around them, and Sasuke unsheathed his gunbai. "This mist doesn't look right."

Sakura examined a wisp of mist. "It looks like mist to me, although this is the wrong time for mist. It would have all cleared by now, unless…" She lunged for Tazuna, tackling him to the ground just as a massive blade came whirling over their heads as Naruto and Sasuke dropped to the ground as well.

"Zabuza Momochi," Kakashi identified, sliding his headband up to reveal a Sharingan. "Demon of the mist.

"Kakashi of the sharingan," Zabuza replied, grinning. Or at least Sakura assumed he was, the movement of the bandages wrapped around the lower half of his face suggested he was at least smiling.

"You three stay out of this one," Kakashi ordered. "Zabuza is far worse than the Demon Brothers.

Sakura nodded, quickly ushering the boys and the bridge builder away from the battle site, and a little ways down the path.

**(A/N) Wave at last. I have a discord server, the code is pnQAF39, come join me. Also there's a poll up, so go vote. **


	10. Important

**(A/N) While this seems a somewhat surprising decision, I assure you it is anything but unthought out. I am, I'm afraid, under a lot of stress. I'm sorry I took so long to inform you, but I will be taking the month of June off from updating. I will be back in July, back with properly scheduled updates. Again, I am terribly sorry, I know you were probably looking forward to some updates, but I feel like I need to do this. No, there won't be an update tonight. I am sorry, but will see you again in July. This has been posted on all my stories, I apologize for the sudden slew of emails. **


	11. Chapter 10

**(A/N) Honestly I'm too tired for this, save me. **

"We can't just leave them to fight," Naruto decided.

"Yes we can," Sakura disagreed. "They're both jounin, and we're just genin. What could we possibly do to help without hindering or outright hurting Kakashi-sensei's chances of winning?"

"Distract Zabuza?" Sasuke asked.

"And possibly distract Kakashi-sensei as well?" Sakura replied immediately. "Are you even thinking clearly?"

Sasuke shrugged. "I would think Kakashi-sensei can tell when to focus on the enemy and not us."

"Tiny genin doing stupid things are more distracting then you think," Sakura snapped. She fiercely shoved Orochimaru's irritated voice out of her head. "He'd be worried if he knew what was good for him."

The boys pouted. "And if he gets stuck?" Naruto asked.

Sakura sighed heavily. "Fine. If he gets really stuck, we'll help him out. But only long distance stuff. Tazuna, stay here, and don't move!"

Tazuna nodded fearfully, and Sakura smiled. "Boys, we'll stay in the foliage just in case Kakashi-sensei is captured. If he defeats Zabuza with no issue, we sneak back here, if he doesn't, we intervene with only long distance attacks."

They nodded, and Sakura led the way into the undergrowth, sneaking to where she had a good view of the battle.

It didn't seem to be going very well, with Kakashi at a somewhat major disadvantage.

It all came to a head with Kakashi trapped in a water bubble. Zabuza finally realized the bridge builder was gone, and looked rather angry about it.

"Long distance now?" Naruto whispered.

"Yep," Sakura muttered, sending her silver dust out to ensnare Zabuza and trip him up. Naruto had the wolf puppet leap out to growl menacingly at Zabuza. Well, it made the motions to growl, as it wasn't capable of sound.

"Oh, a little doggy who can't even growl," Zabuza said mockingly.

The 'little doggy' lunged and tried to tear his throat out. Zabuza dodged of course, and Naruto twisted the strings to make it look like the wolf was standing on the water.

Zabuza eyed the wolf warily. "You're a summon aren't you."

Naruto quickly disproved that theory by having a side panel on the wolf open up to reveal a blade.

"A puppet?" Zabuza sounded so confused, and Naruto snickered.

Sakura smirked as her dust encircled Zabuza's ankles, and she dragged it up into the air, somehow managing to hold him upside down for a full four seconds before he substituted with a log, setting Kakashi-sensei free.

It was a short battle from there, and Zabuza was quickly subdued. Unfortunately, after the hunter-nin took Zabuza's body, Kakashi-sensei passed out.

"Well," Sakura said. "I guess we're pulling out the moose."

"I guess we are," Naruto agreed.

"Fun," Sasuke sighed.

So they pulled out the moose, a large puppet Naruto had mostly made on a dare. At least it was coming in handy now.

It took the combined effort of Sakura and Sasuke to get Kakashi properly situated on the puppet, then some help from Naruto to actually tie him onto the puppet so he didn't fall off.

Tazuna was certainly surprised when they came back with a moose and an unconscious sensei.

"Don't worry," Sakura said, doing her best polite smile. "We'll take care of you. Sasuke? Did you bring any of the birds? We should send a message for some backup."

"I didn't bring any, sorry," Sasuke said, shaking his head.

"Oh well, I guess we're doing this on our own then," Sakura said, nodding firmly to herself. "Alright, lets get a move on. We only have so much time before sundown, and we have to get to Tazuna's house before then."

Tsunami met them at the house with a very confused look at the moose.

"It's carrying our sensei," Sakura explained, polite smile firmly on her face. "He was protecting Tazuna, and has passed out from chakra exhaustion." Inwardly she added 'stupidly' to the end.

From the looks she got from her teammates, they caught the undertone. "Might you have a room we can stick him in?" She asked.

Tsunami nodded distractedly, stepping aside to allow them entry.

The boys had been working on getting their Sensei off of the moose in the meantime, and Sakura looked back just in time to catch Kakashi's head before it hit the ground harshly.

"That was close," Sasuke noted after a moment's silence.

"Very," Sakura said dryly. "Let's not give him brain damage, hm?"

"Yep, sorry Sakura," Naruto said quickly, taking Kakashi's head from her dust. She pushed it back into the sheath.

Sakura watched carefully as the boys got Kakashi into the designated room, setting him on the bedroll Sakura had set up for him.

"He'll be out for anywhere from like four days to one or two," Sakura said after the boys had finished laying him out. She pulled a blanket over their sensei. "We should practice in the meantime."

"Dinner!" Tsunami called.

"And eat," Sasuke told her in no uncertain terms.

"And eat," Sakura agreed, letting the boys lead the way downstairs.

"The food is really good, thanks Tsunami-san!" Naruto chirped, shoveling down his third helping.

"Thanks for putting up with us," Sakura told her, smiling apologetically. "We can be a handful, I know."

"It's really no problem," Tsunami disagreed. "You're protecting my father while he builds his bridge, and that will benefit us all, so it is really no issue."

Sakura smiled at the woman. "Still, thank you."

Tsunami smiled in return, absently scooping more food onto Naruto's offered plate.

"I'll help hunt down some meat tomorrow," Sakura promised. "So we aren't completely eating you out of house and home."

"Ooo, stew," Naruto said with his mouth full.

Sakura bopped him on the head. "Swallow before you speak Naruto."

He swallowed. "Sorry."

**(A/N) Haku next time. I have to be up kinda early to drive 14 hours, yay me. **_**Kill me now**_**. **


	12. Chapter 11

**(A/N) Haku! **

As all of them had already learned water and tree walking due to all of their chosen fields needing some measure of chakra control, Kakashi quickly gave up and set them loose on the bridge.

Sakura quickly caught the end of a wood beam one of Naruto's puppets was carrying with her silver dust, keeping it from sliding off its back. "Careful, we can't break the bridge."

"I wouldn't worry about that," Sasuke noted, breathing a hot but controlled fire jutsu on two metal pieces he was welding together. "It's pretty sturdy. We would know, we've built half of it."

"Still," Sakura said, directing her dust over to where the beam was supposed to rest. "Can't be too careful, I don't want to redo any area of the bridge."

"Okay," the boys agreed grudgingly.

"Thank you. Now, I'm going to go hunt for a bit to grab some meat and perhaps some plants if I can identify any to help Tsunami out, because we are teenagers and eat a lot."

The boys nodded reluctantly, so Sakura set down her hammer and nails, walking into the woods surrounding the small town. There had to be some sort of game in the forest, if not, there was probably something wrong.

She happened upon a rabbit, a cute little thing, and oddly snow white, and when she drew a kunai to impale it, someone quickly stopped her by covering the rabbit. "Please do not kill Yuwai," they said in a somewhat soft voice.

Sakura decided against assuming their gender quickly, smiling politely. "My bad, I thought them a odd sort of game rabbit. I was unaware that it was a beloved pet." Something about how they moved was setting off so many red flags for Sakura, but she couldn't pin them down.

"Perhaps in the future remember that it is only domestic rabbits that retain their white coat year-round," they said mildly, picking up the rabbit and cradling it to their chest. "You are out hunting?"

Sakura inclined her head. "We are visiting for now, and I am assisting our host. My siblings and I are teenagers, and have voracious appetites. I'm trying to take some of the burden off of our gracious hosts."

"I can see why you would do that," they replied, inclining their head right back. "I am familiar with the plants in this region, if you don't locate any meat."

Sakura was admittedly hesitant to agree to help, considering the amount of red flags the person set off, but couldn't blow the impression she was a civie teen. "Sure, why not."

Wait, weren't civilians supposed to be more cautious? Oops. Although she hadn't said where she was visiting from, so maybe it wasn't too out of the ordinary for a place or two. Well, she hoped she hadn't blown it all, and followed the person deeper into the forests.

"My name's Sakura, what's yours?" She asked, hoping that having the person's name would help determine their gender.

"Haku," came the soft reply.

And that wasn't helpful at all. It was a fairly gender neutral name.

"And by the way," Haku said, glancing back at her. "I'm a boy."

Well that fixed that problem. Sakura bent to inspect a plant. "Nice." She settled on, not quite knowing what to say.

"That one isn't poisonous, but isn't very good to eat," Haku commented, spotting her inspecting the plant. "Very bitter."

Sakura eyed it again. Sasuke rather liked bitter plants, so maybe she'd have to see if he liked it. She grabbed a few leaves to stick in her pocket.

Haku shrugged, and moved on. Sakura trailed after him, keeping a close eye out for animals.

She impaled a squirrel a few minutes later, and quickly tucked it into a scroll out of Haku's view.

"This plant is good to eat, if a bit bland," Haku said, pointing out a broad leafed plant, stopping to collect a few leaves himself.

Sakura collected a handful of stems, resolving to run everything Haku determined good past Naruto and the Kyuubi first. If the Kyuubi had to purge something from Naruto's system, she wouldn't keep the plant, if he didn't, it was good for eating. Probably. Wouldn't give more than a mild stomach ache anyway.

"That one's a root plant," Haku commented, pointing to a more slender plant, which did indeed look more like a root plant.

Sakura made the note and followed Haku on. She'd go dig it up later when she wasn't getting a rundown of supposedly edible plants from Haku.

About twenty minutes later, and Haku admitted he had to leave. "It was an adventure working with you, however, Sakura-san."

Sakura nodded, already retracing their path in her mind. "Of course. Perhaps we will see you again at some point."

"Perhaps," Haku agreed quietly, quickly disappearing into the surrounding trees.

Sakura quickly started back along their path, digging up a couple root vegetables and picking leaves and stems of other plants.

"Hey Naruto," she said once she got back, pockets full of assorted plants. "I have things for you to try, and the Kyuubi to poison test."

"Oh fun," Naruto noted sarcastically, taking a few of the offered leaves. "Don't mind me throwing up my guts over here."

Sakura patted him on the shoulder. "You'll be fine. Here's the rest of the plants, yes I washed them, I'll be working on the bridge."

A while later, and all of the plants came up clean. Naruto was relieved because it meant no throwing up, Sakura was relieved because it removed a couple red flags in her mind, and Sasuke was just hungry.

Tsunami was somewhat relieved because that took some pressure off the household, along with the four squirrels and a rabbit that Sakura produced from a sealing scroll.

Everyone else was just hungry.

**(A/N) And I'm just sleepy! Yay… Anyway, yep, Sakura just used the Kyuubi as a poison tester. And Kakashi didn't appear because he is a stubborn bastard and was probably either sleeping, or like, reading or something. **


	13. Chapter 12

**(A/N) The final battle with Zabuza! **

"You!" Sakura said, pointing at the fake hunter-nin. "Not that I'm complaining, but why didn't you try to poison us when I asked about plants here?"

Zabuza glanced at his apprentice, who looked as embarrassed as someone could while wearing a full face mask. "You hadn't actually done anything wrong," the apprentice explained quietly. "I saw no reason to."

Zabuza just sighed like he'd heard that before. Sakura sympathised. "So, you brats gonna let me kill the bridge builder?"

"No," Naruto said, shaking his head, "Sorry, but we want him alive."

"Have to complete our mission, you see," Sasuke agreed.

Sakura sighed, shaking her head. "Whatever."

"You done chatting yet?" Kakashi asked boredly, spinning a kunai.

Zabuza swung his sword at Kakashi's head, leaping forward. Kakashi substituted for a log, and the genin dropped to the floor to avoid the sword.

Naruto jerked his hand forward, and the wolf puppet came racing out of the forest, followed closely by a bird of prey.

Zabuza narrowed his eyes. "A puppeteer are you?"

"A swordsman are you?" Naruto parroted back mockingly.

Kakashi decided to take advantage of Zabuza's minor distraction to lunge out of the forest where he'd substituted, aiming straight for the swordsman's head.

"Haku! Take care of the kids!" Zabuza shouted, parrying Kakashi's blow with ease.

"We're not kids!" Sasuke protested, swinging his gunbai at Zabuza, blowing a strong gust of wind that barely phased the Kiri nin.

"Close enough!" He replied at the same time as Kakashi, who glared at him.

Sakura blocked an attack from Haku with her dust, backing up to where Naruto was. "Can you send a couple clones to protect the house? I have a bad feeling."

Naruto nodded, making a one handed seal. Nothing seemed to happen, but Sakura knew, from long experience with Naruto, that there were multiple clones heading for Tsunami's house. They'd just been formed away from him.

Sakura blocked more senbon, collecting them from her sand to tuck into a scroll. Maybe she'd give them back, maybe she wouldn't. Depended on how this turned out.

Haku remained silent as he attacked them, throwing senbon, then throwing a water jutsu at them. Sasuke took the brunt of the water jutsu with his gunbai, flinging a burst of wind back in Haku's face. Haku weathered the wind, probably sticking his feet to the bridge.

Unfortunately, while Sasuke was plenty good for his age, he wasn't quite the best at the gunbai yet. He could use it, if not at full strength.

Haku made hand signs, and the water around them rose into the air, forming into icy senbon. Ice style, which meant he was of the Yuki clan. In the words of a certain Nara, troublesome.

Sakura rounded up all the dust she had, which was admittedly not that much, and protected herself and Naruto, trusting Sasuke to get himself, and the puppets to be fine.

"I am sorry, but I must bloody my hands if I am to be a true shinobi," Haku said regretfully, massive mirrors of ice forming around them.

Sakura glanced down at her own, not too clean, hands. "I would disagree if my hands weren't already coated in blood," she said, lightly, casually.

Haku paused, staring oddly at her. "You just graduated, did you not?"

Sakura shrugged. "I've had bloody hands for a long time." She summoned up her dust. "And I'll gladly do it again to spare another person from having to do it."

All too quickly, the battle was over. Haku dead by way of throwing himself upon Kakashi's chidori, and Zabuza to the combined effort of Kakashi and all of the thugs Gato had summoned. It was over, Gato was dead, and the bridge wouldn't have any difficulty being built. Their mission was over, so they went home.

"Gaara!" Sakura chirped, meeting him at the gate, the just received burrowing owl perched on Sasuke's gloved hand. "It's been forever!"

"Three years," Gaara agreed.

"Hey Kankuro, Temari," Sakura greeted. "Kankuro, that's Naruto, Temari, Sasuke."

Temari nodded, and she and Sasuke surveyed each other. Temari with her giant fan, and Sasuke and his large gunbai. It was still technically a bit big for him, but he managed.

"How have you been?" Sakura asked. She gently touched the red scar on his forehead. Kanji, reading love. "Where did this come from?"

Gaara blushed slightly and glanced away. "Uh, lapse in mental stability."

Sakura frowned. "Where's Yashamaru?"

"Dead," Gaara barely whispered the word. "He attacked me, and I crushed him because I didn't know who it was. Then he… he said that he'd never loved me, and neither had my m-mother."

Sakura's face softened, and she hugged him. "It's okay, a mother's instincts triumph everything, she would've loved you until the moment she died. He had to have been lying."

Gaara's body shook in her embrace and hot tears soaked into the shoulder of her shirt as he placed his head on her shoulder.

Silver dust and sand swirled together, giving the two a shield from any prying eyes.

Kakashi, having arrived at the training field that he and his genin usually occupied, despaired as his students chatted easily with a Suna team. Sasuke and a girl with a giant fan were comparing wind jutsu on one side of the clearing. Sakura and a red-headed kid were talking about something. Oddly enough, Sakura had a stuffed flamingo in her hands, and the red-head had a teddy bear, of all things. Naruto, his precious student, had Tobirama's wolf puppet out, and he and a kid with purple face paint had puppetry tools out and were systematically looking through both of their puppets, probably comparing them.

A man Kakashi assumed was the Suna kid's instructor, walked up next to him, and groaned loudly. "Would you be their sensei?" He asked with absolute despair in his voice.

"Are you theirs?" Kakashi countered.

The man nodded. "Baki."

Kakashi nodded back. "Kakashi."

"If you don't mind, I'm going to retrieve my students," Baki said, sighing.

Kakashi grunted. "Go ahead."

**(A/N) The Chuunin exams begin! It'll be an adventure, that's for sure! As you can see, while the Yashamaru incident was pushed back somewhat, it was not stopped completely. If anyone is curious, I have roughly 5 chapters of this planned. I might have gone on a planning spree, and SHT7, WBBU, SMSF, DFMW, SEW, WHS, and SS all have plans till the end. 5, 6, 2, 1, 8, 8, and 16 chapters respectively. **


	14. Chapter 13

**(A/N) The first exam of the Chuunin exams. And a bit of the second. Maybe.**

Sakura was just glad they weren't late to the first exam, honestly. They probably could have been, but they weren't. They were one of the last to arrive before the exam started, however, so they didn't really have any time to talk to the sand siblings.

Maybe it was good, the attitude of the room was not conducive to anything like idle chatter.

Although it did seem to encourage cheating, really, five tries at cheating before you were kicked out? Ridiculous. Not that she was complaining though. It was somewhat amusing to see what the other kids from their year were doing. Kiba was just straight up having Akamaru cheat for him, and by the long-suffering look Ibiki got when he glanced at the two, he thought that was ridiculous, but couldn't take more points off.

Sakura was smart enough to answer three of the questions on the test just on her own, so she didn't bother trying to cheat. Her sand wouldn't help much with that anyway.

Something brushed against her leg, and she slipped a hand below the table, finding what had brushed against her. The fox puppet. She glanced at Ibiki and the other chuunin in the room before scribbling down the answers she knew on a spare piece of paper and handing it to the fox. It brushed against her leg again, presumably in thanks, before disappearing.

Sakura pretended to be struggling over the paper, to dissuade people from cheating off of her.

She puzzled out two other questions by the time Ibiki started trying to threaten them into leaving the room. Might have been more intimidating if she hadn't known Orochimaru for the first five or so years of her life. The snake sannin was far more intimidating then Ibiki.

Although few people appeared to agree with that sentiment, leaving quickly under the weight of the mild KI Ibiki was throwing around.

To be fair, she doubted many people here had met the sannin, so perhaps it was unfair to them to compare the two.

Everyone left passed, which included the entirety of the passing teams from her graduating year. That in and of itself was fairly impressive, many genin didn't make it past the first round their first year in the chuunin exams, and they were usually older genin, not fresh out of the academy like their graduating class was.

Their class was mostly filled with class heirs, however, so it wasn't all that surprising. Well, clan heirs plus Kiba and Sasuke who were heirs via their elder siblings rejecting the role. By just saying they didn't want it and literally committing treason respectively.

Oh, wasn't she Orochimaru's student at one point? Sakura eyed the woman that had broken the window on her way in. She was fairly sure Orochimaru had ranted about her before. Something about wasted talent or something.

"Come with me kiddies!" The woman shouted, leading them out the door and across the village.

"Where do you think we're going?" Naruto wondered under his breath, the fox puppet following them at a slight distance.

"Somewhere deadly," Sakura guessed. "I mean, there are still a lot of genin here, and they probably have to narrow it down somehow."

"You're probably right," Sasuke said, shifting the large gunbai on his back. "There'll probably be at least one more round after this, there has to be." A hawk, circling above them, screeched in agreement. It had joined them after they left the building where the first test had been held.

"You think?" Naruto said, humming slightly. His fingers shifted and the fox jumped at them. He caught it in his arms, storing it into a storage seal in the next second. "Hey, isn't this near training ground 44?"

"I think we're heading right for it," Sakura sighed. "Well, it does fit the bill of deadly."

"Sakura, it is literally called the Forest of Death."

"Exactly. There is no better place in Konoha."

"Alright, Kiddies! This behind me is the Forest of Death!" Anko announced, grinning fairly maniacally.

"Well, if she learned anything from him, she certainly picked up his flair for dramatics," Sakura muttered.

"You'll each get a scroll, Heaven or Earth! You need a full set to pass, so at most, half of you will pass. I bet it'll be less though!" She held up the scrolls in question. "Now, sign a waiver cause we aren't going to be responsible for the death of all you little kiddies."

"Oh, scary," Sasuke said sarcastically.

"You know full well what's in that forest," Naruto shot back. "You know that's scary."

"Hn."

"Cool your tops boys," Sakura said, stepping forward to grab a scroll and waivers. "Shut up and sign these."

"What scroll did we get?" Naruto asked, grabbing a waiver and trying to look at the scroll.

"Heaven, sign those or we aren't going to participate." She handed her already signed one back, followed in quick succession by Naruto and Sasuke.

They entered the forest with only the escort of Sasuke's hawk and Naruto's wolf puppet. He'd pull another one out later if they needed it, but for now, the wolf would suffice.

Sakura had her dust caking her clothes, turning them a shiny silver, a way to keep the dust a bit more easily accessible.

"I gotta go to the bathroom," Naruto said after a while of walking. "Wait up for me, I'll leave the wolf with you."

"You and I both know neither of us can pilot that thing," Sakura sighed, but waved him off. He'd be back in a moment anyway.

A minute or two later, and he was back.

"Alright, I'm good to go now!" He said cheerfully.

Sakura frowned. That was not their Naruto. "Sure, let's just wait for Naruto."

"Whadda mean," he asked, playing confused very well. "I'm right here, let's go!" He made to start walking down the path.

Sakura knocked him out with a swift blow to the neck. "Don't turn your back on your enemy," she scolded the unconscious and henged genin. She kicked them none too lightly, and the henge faded, showing an Ame genin. "Really, he should've at least known Naruto would have started the wolf up again before actually appearing, lest we think he's a spy like this idiot." She kicked him again for good measure.

"Aren't we going to, y'know, actually go find Naruto?" Sasuke asked, sounding rather amused.

"I left dust on him when he left, another reason I knew this wasn't Naruto. He's out and coming towards us now, don't worry." Sakura dragged the Ame genin over to a tree and tied him to it. "Maybe his teammates will find him. Oh no, look at this, he has the scroll." Sakura held up another heaven scroll. "This is ridiculous, what did he think he was doing, coming to us with his scroll. He should've left it with his teammates."

"Well we have an extra scroll now," Naruto pointed out as he came back, the wolf standing up from where it had laid down and wandering over to sniff at the Ame genin.

"We still have to find an earth one, so we'd better get a move on," Sasuke said, tossing his head at his hawk. It took flight from where it had perched temporarily.

Sakura eyed the genin for a moment longer, but nodded. "Alright. Let's go."

**(A/N) Orochimaru next time. Who do you think he'll aim for? His forgotten experiment? The Uchiha? The jinchuuriki puppet user? **


	15. Chapter 14

**(A/N) The answer is….you get to wait and see, congratulations. **

They headed deeper into the forest in search of another team. They just had to find someone with an earth scroll. Not too hard.

Wind came out of the deep forest, and Sakura immediately shot chakra to her feet, holding herself to the ground so she didn't get blown away. She could see the boys doing the same, Naruto's wolf leaping behind a tree and digging its claws in.

"That wasn't a genin level wind jutsu," Sakura warned her teammates. "Not at all." Her dust swirled up around her, flashing in the low light.

"Yeah I think I can tell that," Sasuke noted sarcastically, drawing his gunbai.

"Kukuku," a voice rang out, and Sakura's dust shoved Sasuke and Naruto behind her.

"Hey!" they both squawked.

"Stay behind me," Sakura hissed to them. "That's Orochimaru. I recognize his voice."

"The snake sannin?" Sasuke hissed back, gripping his gunbai tighter. "The one that dropped you in the desert for dead?"

"Is there another one?" Sakura replied snippily.

"She has a point," Naruto whispered.

The snake sannin chuckled. "Smart little children are we?" He blurred, coming for them.

It ended up being quite the indicator for how the rest of the fight went. Fast and in a blur. They dodged his head, which was on a long neck and seemed to be going for all three of them equally and without a plan.

Sakura was somewhat worried, especially since it was all three of them in the line of fire. Orochimaru looked to be acting without a plan, going after all of them equally in random patterns. He didn't seem to care who he bit, which seemed to be what he was trying to do.

She was momentarily distracted by a rustling in the bushes, and it seemed to be the opening Orochimaru was looking for. He lunged for her, and her dust reacted too slowly, and it wouldn't get there in time.

Something appeared in front of her, shoving her out of the way, sand, real sand, flaring frantically out of who'd pushed her out of the way. Gaara.

His siblings were half a second behind, just in time to see Sakura bring a kunai up, and chop off Orochimaru's head and Gaara collapse.

Unfortunately the snake was still alive, and the end of the neck retreated before a fully formed Orochimaru crawled from the end of it.

"I have seen that jutsu once, and I already hate it," Sakura noted, kicking the head Orochimaru had left behind. "Lets bring it in for evidence. Kankuro, do you have a sealing scroll to stuff it in?"

Kankuro nodded wordlessly, chucking a scroll at her. Sakura caught it easily, then sealed the head into it.

"What happened to him?" Naruto asked cautiously, approaching Gaara's unconscious form. "And, uh, if he's asleep, shouldn't Shukaku be having a fit?"

Temari opened her mouth, then closed it. She nodded.

"Then why's he just straight up unconscious?" Sasuke asked, crouching next to Gaara.

"I don't know," Kankuro admitted, looking up from where he'd been looking at Gaara's shoulder where he'd gotten bitten. "It looks like a seal? Kind of?"

"What does kind of mean?" Sakura asked cautiously.

Kankuro shrugged. "It means I think it's a seal, but it also might not be, and I don't know what it is if not a seal."

"We'll have to ask Kakashi-sensei. I don't know how much help he'll be, but he was in ANBU, he's got to have some idea of what it might be." Sakura sighed. "I'll check the library once we finish this second exam if he doesn't know. Although honestly, I'm not sure how much I'll find, a lot of Orochimaru information was wiped from the library after he defected."

"That's kind of dumb," Temari noted, raising an eyebrow. "Does Konoha always do that?"

"Wipe information? Yes. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find information on Uzushiogakure, and we were once allies with them." Sakura sighed, shaking her head. "At this point, if just over the library, I will strangle the Sandime."

Temari snorted. "Right, well, we still need a heaven scroll, so we need to be on our way."

"Do you have an extra earth scroll?" Sasuke asked quickly. "Because we have an extra heaven scroll."

Temari pulled out two matching earth scrolls. "Yeah. Switch?"

Sakura pulled out the heaven scroll she had, tossing it to Temari as Temari tossed one of hers to Sasuke.

"We should head to the tower together," Naruto suggested, his wolf leaping to stand beside him. "Less chance of us coming across something we can't beat. And with Gaara knocked out, you've got him slowing you down and tying one of you up in a fight. Even with someone carrying him, we still have four people ready to fight if we're ambushed."

Kankuro nodded. "Sounds good to me. Sis?"

Temari hesitated just a bit longer, but nodded. "Alright. Sasuke and I in the front, Naruto and Kankuro in the middle, Sakura, can you be in the back?"

Sakura nodded, looking to Naruto. "Can you and Kankuro watch Gaara if I float him between you two?"

Naruto and Kankuro exchanged glances, then nodded.

"Let's get to the tower then." Sasuke said, already leaping away to head for the tower.

Luckily they made it to the tower without any further issue, splitting ways once they reached the tower to go in seperate doors.

"What are we even supposed to do?" Sasuke asked skeptically, looking around the very empty room.

"The scrolls maybe?" Naruto suggested, pulling the one he was carrying out.

Sasuke pulled his out. "Might as well. Maybe lets throw them away from us to open them."

The boys both tossed their scrolls after Sakura nodded in agreement to the plan, the two crossing in the middle.

"Oh, both are summoning seals," Naruto noted as a puff of smoke appeared over the scrolls. "Put them together and it makes one full seal. Hey Iruka-sensei!"

Iruka, the person from the smoke, smiled. "Hello Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke. I trust you are well? And read the thing on the wall?"

Sakura had indeed read it, although she bet the boys hadn't. "I did. It means we have to work on both our bodies and minds, right?"

Iruka nodded, his 'proud smile' taking over the polite one he'd had on. "Very good Sakura. It is indeed telling you that. Chuunin have to be smart and able to handle themselves in a fight. Congradulations for making it past this stage of the chuunin exams."

Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. "Can we see our sensei?"

"The jounin-sensei of the teams that have arrived have been notified, although since you have Kakashi, don't expect him for another hour or two. I think he's peeling oranges."

"Doesn't he hate oranges?" Sasuke asked suspiciously.

"Yep, but he's very good at peeling them. His services are much requested." Iruka looked like he was trying very hard to keep a straight face, although it wasn't working very well.

Sakura snorted. "Well, he can keep doing that after we talk to him. It's important. Something happened in the forest."

"I'll send a falcon to get him," Sasuke said instead. "I have one of the falcons trained to come to me when a sound that's in a specific register humans can't hear sounds. I'll get right on that, but I'll need to be at the top of the tower for it to work right."

"Go nuts, you have free reign in here," Iruka said. "I'm being summoned by someone else, so excuse me." He disappeared in a puff of smoke, much similar to how he'd come.

"Lets go find the top of the tower!" Naruto cheered.

"I'm going to go check on Gaara and the sand team," Sakura said, gesturing vaguly to where they might be. "But you guys go do that. Don't die please."

"Course not!" Naruto shouted. "We're too strong to die here!"

Sakura patted his back. "Sure." She left to Naruto's offended squawks behind her.

Because the universe hated them, they had preliminaries. Luckily Kakashi-sensei had been able to identify the seal as a cursed seal, and seal it away. Honestly, Sakura wasn't sure whether Shukaku's seal was worse or better then that one. That one depended on will power, although wouldn't break or let the cursed seal out if Gaara fell asleep. On the other hand, Shukaku's seal depended on who knows what, and Gaara not sleeping. Which, honestly, Sakura thought was unfair. That was neither here nor there however.

Gaara was fine, for the most part, although clearly, Temari was still salty about it. She defeated her opponent, a leaf genin called Tenten, immediately, and with much prejudice.

Kankuro wasn't much better, not bothering with too much playing around and just straight up stabbing the person with one of his poison blades, then chucking the antidote at the proctor's head. "He'll be dead in ten minutes. Better get that in him fast."

"Kankuro wins," the proctor called quickly. The medics came and fetched both the boy and the antidote.

Gaara was thoughtful enough to simply knock out his opponent, as opposed to the usual squishing, even if it was after a difficult fight. The Lee kid put up quite the fight however.

Sasuke's was an easy win, as was Naruto's, both over powering their opponents quickly and easily.

Sakura's was similarly easy, against Ino. The girl seemed to have grown up a bit during her time as a genin, which was better then being a ridiculous fangirl. Sakura was glad for it, it made her less likely to be killed in battle. And that was always a good thing.

In the end, as expected, everyone in their two teams passed, and were in the finals. They had a month to prepare, and Sakura intended to use it to its fullest.

**(A/N) Be proud of me, I managed over 1500 words on this chapter. There are two chapters after this one till this finishes, one in three weeks, then one in December. WBBU finishes the week after that, so make sure to stay tuned here, cause I'll be posting links for polls this time. Since I'm also posting on AO3, it's the easiest way for me to do a poll. **


	16. Chapter 15

**(A/N) Greetings! Nanowrimo is two days from now, and I won't be updating during that time! Updating any fics, to be clear. This one ain't getting updated again cause it's ending today. ...I'll stop putting my foot in my metaphorical mouth and stop talking. Do I remember the exact order of the fights? No. Do I care? Also no. **

Naruto ended up dumped with some random special jounin that clearly was in no way qualified to teach Naruto. So Naruto ended up ditching the guy to hang out with Kankuro.

Kakashi had absconded with Sasuke, apparently to teach him a few jutsu or something, and Sakura had been left to her own devices. Which she was salty about. Well, whatever, she'd manage.

She ended up practicing with Gaara most of the month, the cursed seal having shot his chakra control that was already shoddy, to Kaguya and back. So Sakura helped him with that, and he showed her some moves with her dust.

But finally the big day arrived. The day of the finals was here.

"Ready?" Gaara murmured, quietly lacing their hands together.

Sakura squeezed his fingers gently. "Yep! Let's crush them and fight at the top!" He looked mildly uncomfortable, and she squeezed harder. "Hey, look at me, we'll do fine. Even with the chakra mess and stuff."

"It's not what I'm worried about," he muttered.

"You and Sasuke aren't going to kill each other," she huffed, somewhat exasperated. "And I'm not going to die against that weird sound nin."

"Still not it," Gaara said, sighing. "It's nothing. Let's go." He let go of her hand and walked ahead.

Sakura looked after him worriedly. What on earth could he possibly be worrying about? It was just the finals, wasn't it?

Well it appeared her opponent wasn't showing up, which honestly, rude, although she supposed that since he was dead she could excuse him. Oh well, she'd just have to fight someone in the next round, and it gave her an advantage so she really couldn't complain.

"You got this Naruto!" Sakura shouted, waving after him. He waved back, and she grinned, settling against the railing to watch the match. "He won't have any difficulty," she told Kankuro, who was standing next to her.

"'Course not," he agreed, smirking. "He wouldn't lose to a stuck up Hyuuga."

Sakura giggled. "Indeed. If he did, I would be concerned."

"And I would be offended," Kankuro replied easily. "Because that's just insulting to our training over the last month."

Sakura laughed, patting his shoulder. "Naruto won't let you down."

"He'd better not," Kankuro said, frowning. Then he grinned. "If he does I am kicking his butt into next week after this."

"Go ahead," Sakura said, giggling. "I'll leave you to it. And distract Kakashi."

"Thanks, you're a true friend," Kankuro said, patting her shoulder.

"You're welcome," Sakura replied, laughing.

"And there he goes," Temari sighed, coming to stand next to Sakura. "Five, four, three, two, one-" she was cut off as the proctor declared Naruto's win.

Sakura beamed at her teammate, waving wildly. He'd done well. Now it was Kankuro's turn.

"Kick butt," she told him, smirking. "I'm sure Naruto'll return the favor if you're beaten by the Aburame."

"I dunno, seems pretty tough," Kankuro trailed off, looking thoughtful.

Sakura punched his arm. "As if. Now go. Show em what you can do."

There was an odd silent exchange between Temari and Kankuro, and Sakura narrowed her eyes.

"If you yield immediately out of the gate I will personally try and murder you," she threatened. "And I will get Naruto to help me."

Kankuro paled slightly. "Alright, alright, I'm going already!"

Sakura smirked as she settled back against the railing. "You'd better do well."

He stuck his tongue out at her, but left to enter the arena.

"He'll be fine," Temari said, shaking her head. "Dad won't even notice I bet."

Sakura wondered what their dad wasn't noticing, but simply shelved it under 'what was weird about this day.' She'd get answers later. Probably. Hopefully.

"Hey Sakura!" Naruto said, coming up to her. "Did you see me!? Did you see me win!?"

"Yes Naruto, it was very impressive," Sakura replied easily, patting his head. "I was very impressed. You'll have to ask Kankuro how impressed he was when he gets back up here."

Naruto nodded firmly, eyes glittering. Sakura was almost curious about how he managed that. "Hey, where's Sasuke?"

"There's one of his hawks now," Sakura said, pointing it out. She covered her arm in silver dust for the hawk to land on. She took the message off of the hawk's leg, handing it to Naruto to read. "What's it say?"

"Kakashi's keeping him late, please ask the Hokage to push their match back. Blame Kakashi later, he's been appropriately warned," Naruto read off.

Sakura glared in the general direction she knew Kakashi and Sasuke were. "He's dead."

"Of course," Naruto agreed easily. "I'm gonna go give this to the Hokage, so give me a moment."

Sakura hummed in agreement, watching him disappear. "So rude of Kakashi though," she remarked to Temari. "Not all that surprising honestly, but still."

Temari hummed slightly, watching the Kage booth closely. Sakura traced her line of sight to the Kazekage, who didn't seem to be paying any attention.

"Looks like you're right," Sakura joked. "He won't notice."

Temari hummed distractedly.

Sakura eyed her, but remained silent. What was bothering her and Gaara. She could see her friend fidgeting in a corner in a random show of anxiety, which was weird.

She found out what the fidgeting and the nervousness was about when feathers started falling from the sky during Gaara's match.

Temari's hands were shaking when she turned to Sakura and Naruto. "I should probably explain. Break the genjutsu, and I can."

Sakura pulsed her chakra, feeling Naruto do the same. Around the arena people were falling asleep, slumping in their seats. "Alright, what's going on."

"Suna's invading," Kankuro bit out, approaching them. "We were going to tell you…" he trailed off, sighing.

"Never found a good time to," Temari admitted quietly. "We're sorry."

Sasuke and Gaara joined them in the area.

"What was the original plan," Sakura asked quickly.

"There isn't anything we can do to stop it," Temari warned. "Gaara was supposed to kill or incapacitate Sasuke, then in the confusion of the genjutsu, we were supposed to escape and take Gaara outside of Konoha to release Shukaku and start destroying Konoha."

Sakura frowned. "Did you know anything else about the invasion?"

"Just that we're being aided by Sound," Kankuro admitted. "We're sorry for not saying it sooner."

"It's fine, nothing you can do now," Naruto replied immediately. "We can ask for you to have refuge here after the invasion maybe, but maybe take off your headbands."

Kankuro pulled off his hood, tossing it aside. Temari and Gaara undid the knots of theirs quickly, letting them fall to the ground.

Sasuke put his fist forward. "Let's not die."

"We won't," Sakura replied confidently, putting her fist next to his.

Gaara's followed. "I will ensure our safety with my sand."

Kankuro, Temari, and Naruto all followed suit, with their own promises. They would make sure not too many people died. And that just maybe, there'd be a village to live in after this was all over.

**(A/N) I'm leaving you there. Too bad if you don't like it. Assume what you want. Byeeee! Have a happy All Hallow's Eve! **


End file.
